


Not Quite

by Threadbear



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Everybody Lives, From Sex to Love, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:34:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22314115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threadbear/pseuds/Threadbear
Summary: The war is well and truly over but to say Severus Snape is well liked now would be an exaggeration, barely tolerated might be more accurate.Sirius Black is back though he wouldn’t be if he had anything to say about it and yeah he’s doing about as well as you’d expect.And yes they still hate each other thanks very much, and not that it’s anyone’s business but it’s merely an arrangement of convenience, there’s really nothing more to it than that.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Severus Snape
Comments: 89
Kudos: 256
Collections: 蝙蝠养老中心





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【授翻】Not Quite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22678117) by [SuFeng2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuFeng2017/pseuds/SuFeng2017)



He had mourned his death, in his fashion. He had never liked him but neither had he rejoiced in the news.Just one more he could not prevent, and one of them, a peer. He was the same age as himself, and they were not old at the time. Perhaps thirty, and some change.

Still, the news that he was, after all these years, still alive stuck in his throat.He had got used to the idea that he would never have to see him again. That version of himself, that skinny, weak and fearful boy, had died with him. He hadn’t wanted to see that boy again. And he certainly didn’t want to see Sirius Black.

It was Potter who had ensured they met again. Potter with _those_ eyes he never had managed to unsee. Potter who had damned well _forgiven_ him, who had turned him into a hero he never was. How does one refuse that? One day he really must get around to setting Potter straight. You know that man you used to hate? He would say, I am still that man, I haven’t changed. I am no ones hero. But for some reason he never has. One gets used to not being alone.

I liked you better when you were dead he tells him and Black laughs and says well we have something in common and just for a second he feels sorry for him. Which was his first mistake. Later he realises he was wrong, dead men don’t suck dick like that. At least to his knowledge.

He wastes no time getting Snape into his bed. Why should he? He’s wasted enough of his life already. He was tired of being alone and Snape looked about as sad and lonely as himself. It may as well be him as any other, he hadn’t really cared who it was. Plus, he knew the man could keep his mouth shut. So to speak.

Sirius tells him he’s still an ugly sonofabitch with his body pinning him against the kitchen worktop, whispers it in his ear like a lover. It only seems to amuse him, he laughs at him, cruelly, and it makes Sirius feel small, when he had wanted to be the one in control. This is how they are with each other.

What he doesn’t say is that he likes it. He likes his ugly, too small mouth, twisted into a sneer more often than not, his overlarge nose, his ink stained fingers with their dirty nails. These days pretty things make his skin crawl.

He drops to his knees to wipe that smirk off his face, or because he wants to, wants to feel something other than this relentless gnawing boredom he feels most of the time. And he knows Snape looks down on him because of that, because of the money, because he spends his days doing little more than pacing these rooms, smoking, drinking too much. And yes it does occur to him this will probably make the man feel even more superior than he already does. He does it anyway.

He receives hate mail, an astonishingly imaginative array of it. From those who blame him for Dumbledore, those who lost a loved one and want to hold someone accountable. He can’t fault them really. He hardly forgives himself. He gets death threats too, and those he seriously considers writing back; have at it. He could use the distraction. He tells no one.

This thing with Black though is proving to be the distraction he didn’t ask for. Why does he do it? Every time he thinks of ending it and every time he doesn’t. Why not? Self hatred? Their encounters can hardly be called enjoyable. Intense yes, exciting, yes yes, obviously. But loving? Pleasurable? Gratifying? With Black? Who looks at him like a beetle to be squashed? Who tells him he’s ugly repeatedly and with increased inventiveness each time? Of course not. But dear god, there are easier paths to self-destruction if he were really bent on that.

Black owls him to come on Friday and he goes because what else does he have to do. He lets himself in and finds Black in the kitchen.

“Merlin Snape, what are you doing here? I thought for a second there was a ghoul in my house.” Black says.

“Well I’m clearly not here for your dazzling wit Black – “

“But then I thought – hang on ghouls aren’t usually that slimy.” He grins like a child and Severus sighs.

“You asked me here if you recall, or have you been smoking too much of that stuff you keep hidden in the back of your bread bin?”

“Did I? I must have been high.”

“Black I’m about three seconds away from leaving, if you don’t want me to I suggest you say so.” An empty threat considering it’s been threatening snow all evening and he’d rather not go out again.

“Ok ok, touchy. Yes I remember asking you you twat, it was literally an hour ago. Your ugly ass get a better offer or something?”

“Careful Black,” He says brushing a stray lock of hair from the other man’s face, he was trying for condescending but annoyingly it reads tender. “Someone might think you care.”

“Doubtful.” Sirius says distractedly and he starts on Snape’s jacket buttons.

Snape smacks his hand away. “You think I’m going to let you do that again? Down here? My back still smarts from last time. How old do you think I am?”

Black grins again. “I didn’t think you knew about my bread bin.” He says.

Severus leaves quietly the next morning, though normally he wouldn’t stay. It wouldn’t do to be there when he awakes he tells himself. Next time he will end it and he will enjoy the look on Black’s face when he does so.

—

Afterwards Sirius can’t say what motivated him but one Saturday morning when Snape is sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee and reading Sirius says, “I’m heading out to the cabin next weekend.”

“Fine.” Snape replies, not looking up from his paper.

“There – there’s plenty of room.” He tries.

“Wonderful.” He puts down the newspaper. “Black if you’re trying to cement your position as one of the idle rich, there’s no need. That you own more than one sizeable property is of no consequence to me. In fact, I do not even need to be informed of your weekend jaunts at all believe it or not-“

“-Snape! I’m trying to ask you to come with me you fucking douchebiscuit.” Though at this point he regrets the invitation entirely.

Snape looks at him like he’s suggested they smoke some of Sirius’s weed and rob Gringotts. “Why?”

“I dunno, I guess I had some stupid idea that we might enjoy it.”

“Enjoy it. Us. Together. Black are you feeling alright?”

“Forget it. It was a stupid idea.”

“What would we even do?”

“I said forget it.”

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Ok fine, I will come with you. If that’s what you want.”

“It is apparently.” Sirius says. “Though I have no idea why.”

The cabin, as it turns out, is too small for the both of them. They get sick of each other after about three quarters of an hour but the weather’s bad and there’s nowhere for either of them to go so they start sniping at each other, if only to pass the time. Apparently everything he does and says is designed cleverly and specifically to piss Snape off. Sirius eats an apple, _must you eat so loudly Black_ he says. He pours himself a drink, Snape raises an eyebrow. He tries to start a conversation, that elicits a deep, frustrated sigh. Out of desperation Sirius goes out to the balcony and stands out in the drizzling rain and attempts to smoke a cigarette but it’s freezing so he doesn’t last long. Snape of course lets him know just how much of an idiot he is for that one. _Shut up_ he tells him cleverly and takes off his sodden sweater.

“You let the fire go out.” He tells Snape.

Snape raises an eyebrow at him and flicks his wand lazily at the fireplace.

“There.” He says. “You know magic is a rather wonderful thing Black, you really must try it sometime.”

Sirius gives him the finger.

“Is this what you had in mind Black, when you asked me here?” His eyes are wide with exaggerated innocence. “Because I must say I’m having a wonderful time.” And that’s when he figures out that bastard had only agreed to come to prove what a rubbish idea it was. He should have realised.

Sirius rubs the back of his neck and looks at Snape’s bare feet slung up on the couch poking out of frayed denim. The thing about Snape was, unprompted and without mention he would steal Sirius’s old ripped jeans and stained t-shirts and wear them around the house. Sirius hadn’t known what he’d been expecting him to prefer, frilly silk shirts and velvet capes maybe? Anyway the first time Sirius had seen him in a pair of his own faded jeans with grease stains and paint marks covering them, slung low across his hips, he had damn near come in his pants.

“Well, we could fool around.” He says.

Snape nods. “Alright.”

I told you this was a good idea, Sirius tells him. You were bound to have one one day Snape replies and Sirius digs his teeth into his neck. At least that shut him up. Sirius had taken him upstairs to his bedroom, knowing otherwise Snape would complain for the rest of the weekend about his bad knee that Sirius was strongly starting to suspect didn’t exist. He has Snape’s t-shirt half off and his underwear had been thrown halfway across the room and he’s rutting into the crack of his ass like a mindless dog and Snape’s letting him, in fact he’s encouraging him, canting his hips up just so.

“Can I fuck you?” Sirius asks, or rather rasps in his ear, dirty and low and it makes him feel like he’s corrupting something innocent. He has no idea why; Snape is the least innocent person he can think of, besides himself.

“I thought that’s what we were doing.” Snape drawls, trying, and almost failing to look supercilious.

“Yeah but—“

“Yes Black, you don’t have to ask, and certainly not like a puppy begging for a treat, I’ve already given you my consent have I not? Assume that still stands until such time I wish to revoke it.” Something clicks for Sirius then, Snape certainly gave as good as he got in the bedroom but what were the chances that someone as tightly controlled and domineering as him sometimes just wanted a man to take him and fuck him senseless. Quite high, Sirius thought. Sirius could be that man.

He doesn’t have to be told a third time, he pulls Snape’s shirt off all the way and hitches his legs up over his shoulders. He enters him with no more than his own precome and a bit of spit as lubricant and Snape takes it like a fucking man he’ll give him that, just looks at him defiantly, eyes blazing. “Shit,” Sirius groans, “you’re a good fucking fuck Snape. If I had any sense I would have done this when we were in school. If you would have let me.”

“I would have.” Snape says without pausing.

When Snape comes it’s with Sirius’s name on his lips, his first name, not his second and after Sirius wants to say I like it when you do that but he sees no reason why he should embarrass himself like that so instead he raises his eyebrow and says On first name basis now are we?

Snape looks at him with distain, “If you’ve finished your caveman impression Black, I’m going to take a shower. Alone.” And he gets out of bed. Which is a shame but at least things didn’t get weird.

“I didn’t hear you complaining,” Sirius mutters after he’s left.

For the rest of the weekend whenever he wants Snape to stop talking he just starts unbuttoning his shirt or pulls Snape’s head back roughly and bites his neck or some other cheesy seduction thing that always work on Snape like every single time because he’s such a massive loser. Black, Snape says, if you keep this up I’m going to start getting an erection every time we fight. I see no problem with this Sirius tells him.

When he gets home he finds himself idly thinking about him when he’s making tea and hot water splashes over his cup and onto the bench. “Shit.” He says but he’s thinking about how things probably did Get Weird, not about the mess. Next time he sees Remus he mentions he’s thinking about getting away for a bit and Remus invites him to come with him and Tonks and the rugrat to Greece for a month in the summer. He agrees readily, a few weeks apart from Snivellus would be just the ticket.

Just before he leaves something happens to make him congratulate himself on a rare sensible decision. He's having a pint at the Leaky while he waits for Severus to knock off and while he’s there a witch in heels and a tight business skirt strikes up a conversation with him at the bar, you should take my number, she says. And hey, it’s not unusual for him to get hit on, he might be getting on but he can still pull besides sad old Hogwarts professors but this time for reasons later beyond him he feels it necessary to say _sorry, I’m seeing someone_. Lucky girl, she says and he’s not in the mood to let that lie so he corrects her; “I’m not sure he’d agree with you.”

“Sorry I seem to have got the wrong end of the stick.” She says, embarrassed.

“You haven’t.” He says, wondering why so many people had such a hard time getting their heads around the concept of bisexuality when in his experience it was a lot more common than people gave it credit for.

Much later it occurs to him he could have said nothing, it was probably closer to the truth and anyway, what the hell would Snape care what he did with his time when he wasn’t with him? He wouldn’t. Even later it occurs to him that she had been hot, like objectively hotter than Snape, not that that was hard. The embarrassing truth was he had been hoping to catch the git in his dungeons that evening after his classes had ended and he had been distracted by thoughts of him in his shirt sleeves brewing, cuffs pushed up to reveal sinewy forearms, sweat gathering in that space between his clavicle his first button and his brow furrowed in concentration. Absolute madness. At what point had he started to think of Snape as sexy? At what point had he started daydreaming about him when he wasn’t around?

Anyway, Snape didn’t seem to care when he told him he was going, didn’t even ask when he’d be back. He assumes he’ll spend the majority of his time on the beach and in bars, drinking more than he’s usually allowed to, and being far too busy with bronze skinned, fresh faced Greek beauties to give any thought at all to certain acid tongued potions professors. However talented said professors might be with their tongue (and mouth, and hands come to think of it) was largely irrelevant.


	2. Chapter 2

When Black leaves for Greece in July Severus is relieved. What better way to rid himself of this annoying little Black habit. Like ripping off a bandage. He imagines a future for himself where he no longer has to stick his dick in Sirius Black on the regular like a man getting a fix. It was atrocious that he had let things go on for so long, where was his self respect? He obviously had none left to speak of. His therapist had diagnosed him with PTSD, told him that’s why he hadn’t been sleeping, he asked her if one of the symptoms was sleeping with undesirable men, well man, and she had said sure, it can sometimes manifest that way. So at least now he has an explanation.

Yes he was relieved when he left, very much so, and yet now he finds himself, barely a week later head thrust out his living room window, clutching a Postal Owl to his chest. He’s not proud of himself, though that does little to stop him. He wonders if Black has been thinking about him as much as he has. Of course he hasn’t. His bed’s probably so full of exotic men and woman he hasn’t had time to give him a cursory thought (trust Black to not have a preference, so typically excessive). Oh gods how he hates him.

 _Black_ , he had written, _I have some free time and I find myself wondering upon the date of your return. You never said. It’s different here without you. Quieter. I’ve been more productive of course. So that’s good. I was thinking about that time when we were at your cabin and it rained the whole time, you came in from the rain and your hair was wet and droplets ran down your neck and your chest. That was good too. Anyway it’s horribly sticky and humid here now, you know I hate that. Write and tell me when you’ll be back. S_. _S_

He ignores the rational part of his brain screaming at him to stop and sends it.

“A letter for you Sirius, it’s from your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Sirius says and snatches the letter from Remus and all but runs up the stairs to his room, checking the wax seal as he does so, just to be sure.

“He knew who I meant though.” He hears Remus say to Tonks.

The past week had not gone how Sirius had planned; in fact it had been for want of a better word, shit. He’s not sure why but he’d been in a terrible mood practically the whole time. Moping around with a face like a slapped ass Tonks had said. _Fuck off_ he had mouthed at her covering Teddy’s eyes with his hand.

There had been no exotic and beautiful Greek models, needless to say.

He rips open the letter and reads it quickly. When he’s done he tears up his room looking for ink and parchment and writes back.

 _Snape_ , he writes, _Greece is shit. I know what your going to say and yes, that’s a lazy description but it is shit and that’s all there is to it. You would hate it more than I do. I have been swimming a lot though. Yours, S.B._

_P.S. You bad man, now you’ve got me thinking of you slick with sweat in those tightly buttoned up shirts you wear. When I get back I’ll lick it off._

_P.P.S. Friday 3 weeks from now. I know, far too long._

He sends it away using the ancient owl that came with the house they’re renting and he hopes the bloody thing can fly. He gets one back before evening.

_Black, Lazy indeed. More description needed re. swimming. Write back immediately. Yours, S._

The next day Sirius goes into the nearest Wizard village and buys a camera. He briefly considers whether a man of his advanced years should be doing this kind of thing but stuff it, he’s bored and he never had much of a youth to speak of anyway, so whatever, that’s his excuse. He buys some developing potion as well and a few other things and the clerk gives him a basic rundown of how to develop the film. He sort of remembers a few things anyway from fifth year when he took the Magical Photography option, mostly to piss off his mother. The first few photos he takes are fairly terrible but he soon improves. He chooses two he thinks look ok given he’s on the dodgy side of forty, and fires off a quick missive: _Snape_ , he writes, _I never did have your eloquence with language but maybe this will suffice_. He seals it all in an envelope and sends it quickly before he changes his mind.

 _My lord Black_ , he gets back, _did you want to give me a heart attack? Was that your aim? You’re just lucky classes are over for the year, can you imagine the scandal had I got that owl in the Great Hall at breakfast? I’m not sure that even I am good enough to cover my… reaction to that. Let’s just say that it was strong and swift and even more swiftly taken care of. I will of course be needing more at your earliest convenience. Yours, S._

_P.S. Do I really need to tell you how sexy you are? No doubt you already know._

_P.P.S. You do know don’t you Black?_

_Fuck_ he says at the image of Severus making himself come, he’s not sure why the idea of that should affect him so, but _God_. He realises with some guilt that he had never asked just where Snape would be spending the summer. He remembers he used to have a derelict old house in some creepy backwater but he had no idea whatsoever if that was where he still called home during the months he wasn’t at Hogwarts.

The second postscript was interesting, because as far as Sirius was aware Snape thought he was a self satisfied, vain narcissist. He had never before shown any indication that he knew that Sirius in fact wasn’t as cocky and self assured as he would like everyone to believe. The thing was though, Snape seemed to like this beaten down and worn version of his body with its scars and too many tattoos. He had told him many times and shown him many times more. Had he once felt like he wasn’t enough? God no. You’re too much, Snape would tell him, no one should look as good as you.

He takes a photo of himself, propping the camera next to him on the double bed, and when he develops it later he sees himself looking defiantly into the camera, his face is lined heavily and he has thick streaks of grey in his hair. His bare chest fills the rest of picture, his tattoos in sharp focus, the lines broken by silvery webs of scars. He chooses this one to send to Severus, though it’s probably not the kind of photo he’s after. _I don’t suppose I could persuade you to send me one back?_ He writes. _Not even when hell freezes over_ , was the reply. He sends back a photo of his dick in his hand, hard and straining, _I guess I’ll just have to continue to use my imagination_ , he writes with it.

Remus and Tonks keep asking him about his new found photography hobby so when he’s not taking amateur pornographic pictures of himself he goes out and takes photos of the glass like sea, and the whitewashed buildings with their narrow alleys just so he has something to show them. He starts venturing further and wanders down ancient hiking trails and stumbles across muggle battlements that he guesses must be thousands of years old. At some point he starts to like the place. One day he comes across a set of runes carved into rock so ancient he can’t even begin to guess their meaning. He takes a photo so he can ask Severus later. Mostly on these ramblings he’s alone and he finds crumbling grandeur of the place unexpectedly rejuvenating.

—

The travel had taken it out of him and he should have used the time to catch up on sleep but instead he spends the day clock watching and cracking open cans, head snapping to attention at imagined sounds at the door. It’s not until the sun is casting long shadows through the kitchen that he had heard the floo chime. He has to stop himself from running for it.

“Oh it’s you.” He says watching him dust himself off. He looks tired, they both had trouble sleeping but for whatever reason they slept a little better when they were together. Sirius had endured a month of sleepless nights and he wondered if Snape had too. “I’d all but forgotten you were coming.”

“Did you go somewhere?” Snape says with a tilt of the head. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Sirius grins at him and Snape grins back then Sirius isn’t sure who lunges first but they’re grabbing at each other and their mouths come together with bruising force. If Snape notices the beer on his breath he doesn’t say anything. At some point Sirius realises he’s groaning into the other man’s mouth like a swooning maiden and somewhere it dimly registers that for all their fucking like teenagers they haven’t done this part much before and it feels dangerously, headily intimate.

“God damn.” Sirius tells him, pulling away and breathing heavily, “It’s good to see you.”

He can feel the scratch of the rough worn carpet against his cheek and make out the faded red radiating floral pattern. As a very young boy he would sit outside his fathers study tracing his fingers methodically along each of those shapes. He remembers it very clearly because he was never allowed to go in, would just sit outside his door as if in his tiny kid brain this approximation of closeness, this simulated sort of love was some kind of acceptable stand in for the real thing. Later he would give up those doorside vigils, and later still he would watch as his father gave his younger brother the attention he had craved, the encouraging words, even the occasional stiff one armed hug and he would vow to never need anyone like that again, least of all them. He wishes for a second he hadn’t blasted every single one of his family’s portraits off the walls when he had moved back in. Because he thinks he’d like them to see him now.

His pants had been shoved down to his knees, his hips are in the air, and Severus is holding him open with his thumbs and he’s licking into him, sloppily, hungrily. Sirius’s face feels hot and he’s gasping and he can’t seem to stop saying _oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck_ over and over. And maybe he’s had more expert lovers than this, more experienced but he’s never been so _wanted_ before, so enthusiastically fucking _devoured_.

“I thought you didn’t like doing this down here.” He gasps out which he immediately regrets because Severus stops what he’s doing to answer him.

“Black to say there’s certain ways I don’t like fucking you would be… wholly inaccurate.” And god his voice is so fucking deep it makes Sirius groan with it.

“My name.” He says. “Say it. Like you did when-”

“ _Sirius_.” Severus slurs and dips one of his thumbs into his hole and Sirius can feel the catch of his nail. “ _Sirius_ , _fuck you’re so_.” Then his mouth is back on him and Sirius is sobbing out expletives again and gasping for air.

Then as suddenly as he had started Severus stops. “Over.” He says, pushing him lightly on the hip with his hand. Sirius turns around blearily and Severus’s mouth is on him, he can taste the musky scent of himself.

“Tell me what you want.” Severus whispers into his mouth.

“Fuck me Severus.” Sirius says because he knows by now that Snape wants him to say that, wants to pretend he’s doing it for him, not the other way round, Sirius knows by now that Severus Snape likes to be _begged_. Sirius never has though. Not once.

Snape grabs a vial from his coat that’s bunched up beside them on the floor though Sirius doubts he really needs it after all that.

“Presumptuous.”

“Maybe I just knew you’d be sure thing.”

Snape’s slick fingers inside him are just a little too rough to be pleasurable and Sirius hisses. Severus studies him with something other than concern and does it again.

“Bastard.”

“Want me to stop?”

“Don’t you dare.”

He does anyway and unbuttons his pants and shoves them down his thighs. Snape always undressed that way, as an after thought or maybe a challenge. Like it had never occurred to him that Sirius might just want to see him without the layers of armour he usually wore.

“Babe.” Sirius says. “Shirt off.”

“What for?”

“Humour me.”

He does it quickly, impatiently, then throws his shirt to the side. “Anything else?” He asks, “or can we get on with it?” He pushes Sirius’s legs back and Sirius feels vulnerable and exposed.

“You can do whatever you want to me.” He tells him.

“Shit.” Severus says seriously in his deep voice. He takes himself and nudges at Sirius’s entrance. They both groan when he enters him with one long thrust.

“Is this what you want?” Severus rasps at him.

“ _Yess_.”

“You waited for me.” Severus marvels. It’s not a question. “I can tell. God you’re so tight.” He thrusts in again, a little harder this time and Sirius jolts beneath him, face burning, he won’t admit to it.

 _Fuck_ he gasps. “It’s ‘cos you’re so fucking big.” And it’s true, he is, it had been a source of none too small obsession for him since he’d found out.

“You like that.”

“What do you think? God _fuck_.” He says because Severus suddenly pushes his legs back even further so he’s almost bent in two and he’s fucking into him so deep that Sirius can feel himself stretched wide, not quite comfortably, around him. “Sev fuck you have to go slower, you can’t just – _ah_ \- you’ve got to – _god_ – ok yeah keep – _uh_ keep doing that.” Severus’s cock suddenly jabs into his prostate and he rolls his head back involuntarily. “God that’s – _oh god_.”

“Good?” he asks. “Is that good?”

“Yes you bastard yes, _God yes_.”

Severus bends down and catches his mouth with his, he bites and sucks Sirius bottom lip, he’s too rough, he’s too everything.

Snape fucks him like he’s punishing him for something though Sirius thinks, no doubt he is, Sirius doesn’t mind though, he drives into him from below, pushing his hips up in time to meet his thrusts, his hip twinges, he’ll be sore later, but _sweet Merlin_ it feels good and he can’t seem to stop blabbering.

“God somebody shut me up, this is embarrassing oh god fucking muzzle me why are you so good at this gonna come if you don’t stop fucking me fuck—”

“Keep talking.” Severus growls. He can see the cords standing out in his neck and the sweat dripping from his wiry muscled chest. Fuck you’re hot, he tells him, so fucking hot, and he probably hasn’t said that to him before. He’s not sure whether he will regret it later.

Snape keeps finding his prostate, because of course he does, he can feel his orgasm creeping up on him, radiating through his body and up his spine. God Severus I’m so fucking close he gasps and Snape wraps one of his long fingered hands around his cock and then he’s coming so hard he sees stars and he’s only vaguely aware that he’s sobbing Severus’s name while at the same time spilling himself all over his chest. And it must register somewhere that Severus is coming too because he manages to gather his two brain cells left to say, “Fuck yes put your cum in me,” before collapsing into semi consciousness.

When Sirius comes back to himself Snape is collapsed over his chest and his cock is still inside him. He wipes at his cheek and it comes away wet, “Shit I’m crying. I’m literally - what did you do to me?”

Snape looks up at him through his eyelashes and smirks lazily.

“Don’t look so bloody pleased with yourself. You would make anyone’s eyes water.” Sirius tells him, even though, well that’s not something that happens to him usually is it? Him being reduced to a sobbing incoherent mess during sex and when he hears his own voice it sounds absolutely wrecked. “You’re a lot.” He tells him. “You’re a lot to handle.”

“Is that good?” Snape asks.

“Yeah babe, it’s good _._ ” He says and when Snape moves and pulls out of him Sirius groans, as if he hadn’t already made enough of an embarrassment of himself already.

“I was going to break it off with you when I got back you know.” Sirius says then.

“So was I actually.”

“Were you?”

“I still might. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Is that right?”

“It is yeah.” Severus says barely repressing a smile and Sirius thinks he has a nice smile when he’s not sneering at you.

“You know you can’t fuck me if we’re broken up.”

“There is that.”

—

If Severus had stopped imagining an end for them, stopped pretending he’ll break it off the very next time he sees him, it’s only because, he tells himself, if someone who looks like Sirius Black lets them fuck you you keeping doing it until they decide you should stop. Especially if you look like a skinny drowned rat and that’s on a good day. And yes, he has to admit that sex with Black is exceptional in every sense of the word; he has no frame of reference for it. Black fucks like a man who, well, like a man who has come back from the dead and is making up for lost time. At his age it can’t be very good for his heart, Severus often thinks that that will be what does him in finally. But what a way to go, balls deep in Sirius Black.

He isn’t his boyfriend of course. Well he doesn’t think he is. Black tells him: _this is just casual babe, it’s just sex_. But also: _Don’t forget we’ve got that dinner thing Friday_. And, _Severus Snape you need to tell me when you go away_. That last one was especially important it seemed and extended to times when Severus wouldn’t even be expected. Black calls him _Babe, asshole, sweetheart, loser_ and if Severus finds it all a bit confusing it’s only because this is all very new to him. This is probably just what people do.

Sometimes they even go out in public. They never had bothered to hide their relationship from anyone but sometimes he wishes they had. Sometimes it seemed as if the entire Wizarding population of Britain knew their business. And perhaps they did, he’d long ago given up reading The Prophet with any regularity but he understood they both featured prominently in its gossip pages. He recalls fondly when the only rumours about him were of the Death Eater variety. Simpler times. He doesn’t remember telling Draco but of course he knew anyway. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, he tells him.

“Oh I think we’re way past pretending that’s not true,” Draco says. “Pansy saw you two snogging in Hogsmeade last Friday. If you don’t want people to know maybe you could hide it better. I’ve been led to believe you’re capable of it.”

Severus stirs sugar into his coffee. “I won’t hide any longer. Though I fail to understand what the fascination is with what is essentially no one else’s bloody business.”

“You do realise even you can do better.” Draco says.

He takes a sip of coffee and looks out the window. “Yes thanks Draco.”

“And the whole family is crazy.”

Severus sighs deeply. “They do a rather good tea cake here,” he says absently. In fact he did think that Black was crazy for a number of reasons, currently the top contenders were, in no particular order: he was far too friendly with everyone, even literal strangers (a simple trip to the shops would often become an excruciating exercise in who could offer up the most inane and tedious conversational titbit) and he had what was, quite frankly, a certifiable habit of stealing Severus’s toast in the morning, long after it had discontinued to be cute.

“This is of course a man you’ve hated your entire life.”

“Hmm.”

“That you have good reason for hating.”

“Yes I do, I have very good reason.”

“That you hate still presumably.”

“Yees… It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is.” Draco says raising his eyebrows.

“I have not a single idea what you are insinuating.” He says, “Nor do I care before you try to tell me.”

Draco smirks. “He’s pretty hot though eh?”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Must be tough being as deep and complicated as you Severus, I can’t even imagine.”

“God you’re annoying, do people tell you that?”

“Not as often as you’d think. Who would have thought eh? Severus Snape, flesh and blood like the rest of us. Well there you go there’s your answer.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why everyone finds it so bloody fascinating. It humanises you. People are starting to warm towards you.”

“Hardly.” Severus mumbles to himself, thinking of the death threats he still regularly gets. Though he had started to think that a slew of them were from the same person. This didn’t worry him as much as perhaps it should have. It seemed they were all talk anyway, it was all rather boring.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing. Let's talk about something else. How’s your girl?”

“She’s amazing. I’m going to marry her.”

“Lord do people still do that? How revolting.”

“Oh bloody hell.” Draco nods towards the door. “Don’t tell me I’m going to have to speak to him now too.”

Severus looks around.“Oh he’s early.” He had told him to meet him after he was done with Draco, and yet here he was, a full half hour early.

“Fantastic.”

Black saunters over to where they are sitting. As usual he has no regard for social propriety, it wouldn’t have even crossed his pea brain that this might be awkward. He grabs the empty chair beside him and flings his big body into it like a toddler and motions to the young waitress across the room for coffee. Snape has to marvel at the audacity of the man, so used to being noticed he doesn’t even pause to get her attention, just knows he has it.

“Hey loser.” He says to him and kisses Severus twice on the mouth. Snape kisses him back and wonders if they’re both thinking the same thing: fuck anyone that’s watching. He puts his hand on Black’s thigh and leaves it there, suddenly feeling a bit possessive; maybe it has something to do with his conversation with Draco, he’s never been too good with people telling him he shouldn’t do something. Black and he have that in common.

Sirius looks over at Draco like he’s just noticed he’s there. “Malfoy.” He says.

Draco in turn looks as if he’s just tasted something unpleasant. “Black.” He replies.

The waitress sets down Blacks coffee in from of him, she lingers, smiling hopefully. Black of course doesn’t even notice.

“Yes thank you.” Severus tells her, releasing her. He rolls his eyes and wonders not for the first time if someone had perhaps put an invisibility potion in his coffee. Is his hand not literally on the man’s thigh? Though he can’t really even blame them, they don’t even seem to know they’re doing it, it’s just the effect Black has on people.

Black gulps his coffee. “S’good.” He says.

“So Black, since you insist on being here, you may as well tell me.” Draco says. “What are your intentions with Severus?”

“My intentions?” Black says. He looks at Severus. “Are you hearing this shit?”

“That’s right. What is it that you want from him?” Draco says and Severus thinks he could stop this conversation right now but he’d been rather wondering the answer to that question himself.

“Hm what do I want from him. Actually Malfoy I’m glad you asked, I'd have to say it's his massive c --”

“Black.” Snape warns sharply, squeezing his thigh. He’s pretty sure he’s only recently had a talk with Black about what constitutes appropriate conversation in public. “I think what Sirius means Draco is that it’s none of your damn business.”

“I was going to say ‘cauldron,’” Black says blinking in innocence and Severus knows for a fact that he wasn’t.

“Look Black,” Draco says, ignoring them, “I don’t give a shit what atrocities you two get up to in the bedroom but you will have to answer to me if you hurt him. Just know that.”

Sirius laughs. “Well I think we’ll both find that embarrassing.”

“Have we had enough?” Severus says, though truthfully he’s rather touched. It’s not often he’s had someone in his corner, as misguided as it might be. “Because I think we’re about done here.”

Both Draco and Black just look at him.

“I’ll pay then shall I?” He says.

“Obviously.” Draco says.

“Don’t even ask babe just do it.” Black tells him. He and Draco look at each other incredulously and they both shake their heads. Honestly he sometimes wonders if the pair of them confuse him with the house elves they were undoubtably accustomed to.

He sighs and gets up. He’d read somewhere that he’s clearly with Black for his money, which would be hilarious if anyone actually knew. Black was partial to cheap beer and bad pizza, both of which Severus had to pay for, and his idea of an extravagant gift was a blowjob in a toilet stall of a pub. Although once he had offered to pay him his full yearly salary if he quit his job and stayed in bed and Severus had thought at the time that he was only half joking.

They leave and Black gives the waitress a charming smile and a wink. Merlin’s balls Black don’t encourage them he tells him. What? Black says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out Fountainjen's art of the little scene where Sirius gets the first letter - it's so good  
> [art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25324840/chapters/62299942)  
> While you're at it check out the rest of that series - you shan't be disappointed ;))


	3. Chapter 3

It was a Saturday and Sirius was bored, Severus had been ignoring him all day.

Look, Sirius had never imagined them ending up like this. It wasn’t as if either of them were heavily invested but it seemed like too much bother to change things up at this point. What would be the point of having average sex with other people, he’d told Severus, when I can fuck you? It would just be a waste of his time. Severus had shrugged lazily, whatever you like, he’d said. And if they spent most weekends together that was mostly out of convenience than anything else.

He finds him on the couch smoking absently and reading a book, no doubt something pilfered from Sirius’s library. Sirius had read most of them himself but he liked to pretend to Snape that he hadn’t because it annoyed him especially when all evidence pointed to the contrary. He would then casually drop a line or two from whatever Severus was reading currently into conversation, the look of absolute loathing on his face gave Sirius an excessive amount of joy.

He slides in between Severus and the back of the couch. “Those things will kill you.”

“So will a lot of things.” Severus says turning a page and not looking up.

Sirius rubs himself up against his ass; he doesn’t like to be ignored. “Want this cock in you?” he asks gruffly into his ear. He doesn’t miss the way Severus’s whole body tenses and his breathing quickens, “Hm?”

“Mm hm.” Severus’s voice is a low purr.

“Want it to hurt?”

“Fuck yes.”

 _Want me to be your caveman my little wildling?_ He thinks, though he’d never say that to him, Severus would get up and walk out and he’d be lucky if he didn’t hex him as he went if Sirius was ever to let on that he’d guessed that about him. Being with Severus sometimes felt like trying to tame a hippogryff. He spits on his hand and using that alone as lube he enters him roughly, with both their pants pushed down around their ankles. He fucks him hard and jerkily, and he grunts in his ear like an animal. Pulling Severus’s t-shirt off him he has the idea to choke him with it and he pulls it tight around his neck and Severus jerks himself off until they both come, Severus first, panting and gasping for breath and Sirius following after with a shout.

“I shouldn’t do that to you.” Sirius says after.

“Do what?” He barks, his voice husky.

“Choke you, it’s not right. I could hurt you.”

“As if you could.”

“I have at least three stone on you baby.” He says softly.

“For fuck’s sake Black, I’m not one of your naive young sycophants, I’m already damaged goods. You can fucking hurt me, it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s what worries me.” He mumbles.

“Get the fuck off me.” He says but Sirius grabs him playfully in a chokehold and wraps a leg around his torso.

Next thing he knows he’s on his back pinned beneath Severus’s body and he has a wand at his throat, jabbing in hard enough to make him wheeze. He’s not even sure when Severus had grabbed his wand, he was scarily quick. It’s a lesson, Severus is a dangerous man, he would do well to remember that. Tenderness and sympathy have no place between them. “Psycho.” He says, squashing down the affection that threatened to tighten his chest. Severus was right, what use was that to them anyway?

“Don’t do that again.” Severus growls at him, then rolls off to let him up.

Sirius pulls up his pants with as much dignity as he can muster. “She dies at the end by the way.” He says, nodding towards his book, he gives him the middle finger with both hands for effect and walks out.

Later Severus makes him dinner and apologises ‘for being a grumpy old cunt’ in his words, and Sirius tries not to let his eyes bulge out of his head too much. Sirius washes up and he eventually feels arms circling his waist and a head resting on his shoulder. It feels like when a bad tempered cat that’s usually swiping at your feet curls up on your lap when there’s no one around and he wonders if anyone else has got to see this side of him. Sirius relaxes into him and nuzzles his head in to say stay here, don’t go anywhere.

“Babe?” He asks after a minute because he’d never learnt not to push his luck.

“Hmm?” Severus hums, pushing his hair to the side and kissing his neck lightly.

“Why didn’t you tell me about that thing at your house last summer?” He can feel him immediately stiffen and pull his head away.

“What ‘thing’ pray?” His voice takes on a dangerous silky tone that usually means that anyone in the vicinity should be wary.

“Harry told me someone attacked your house over the summer, that you were upstairs sleeping when it happened. Thank God or you would have…” He trails off. It had been a fire bomb spell of some kind, nothing huge but large enough that it would have been one hell of a scare and had apparently caused enough internal damage to his downstairs living room that he hadn’t been able to fix it himself with magic. So Harry had said.

“Damn that boy, that wasn’t his to tell.”

“He was just worried about you. He honestly thought you would have told me. I thought you would have too.” He says in a small voice. Shit, he would have come home if he knew.

He sighs and slips his hands from his waist. “There was no point. I dealt with it. It’s over with now.”

“Dealt with it how?” Sirius asks, he turns around to face him with hands dripping with soapy water; he wipes them roughly on his jeans.

“Excuse me?”

“Dealt with it how? Harry says you weren’t able to fix all of the damage and as to finding the person who did it, I could have helped. We all could have.”

“The house was always a mouldering piece of shit, even when I was a boy and what ever damage was done could hardly have made it any worse. The point is moot anyway because I no longer frequent the place unless strictly necessary, the headmaster has given me permission to stay at Hogwarts throughout the holiday periods so yes it is all dealt with now. And as far as finding the person who did it, that would be impossible, as you have pointed out, I was upstairs sleeping when it happened.”

He wants to say hey me too, the only difference between your house and mine, this festering dump we’re in now, was a few extra square feet and a couple of fucking house elves. There was no love here, no warmth, plenty of hate though, no shortage of that, was it the same for you? When you watched your house burn did part of you want to laugh? What was it like? But he can’t figure out how to say the words aloud without choking on them.

“You know who it is don’t you?” He asks because it’s Severus Snape and he’s known him since they were eleven, he knows how to read between the words he says.

“Didn’t I just say I didn’t?”

“Not directly. I’d put good money on you not being asleep when it happened. You never sleep. I’m right aren’t I? Why are you allowing this shit Snape?”

“Everything I did I did willingly. I’ve brought this on myself.” He thrusts his sleeve up, it’s still there plain as day, Sirius had often wanted to run his fingers over it but he never had the nerve to ask. “I’m a fucking Death Eater Sirius, or have you forgotten?”

“Bullshit.” Is that really what he thinks? “Yeah you did what needed to be done because you’re stubborn as fuck and you sure as hell wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it but you wouldn’t have chosen any of that, not if there was any other way. Jesus fucking Christ no one would have.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” Severus snarls and well yeah what had Sirius expected? Constructive conversation wasn’t exactly their strong point.

“It wasn’t your fault babe.” He says with dawning realisation, it really sounded like he didn’t realise that.

“You know _nothing_.” Severus spits and he turns on him and he walks out.

“I know more than you think!” Sirius calls after him, but that wasn’t quite correct was it? What he didn’t know about Severus Snape could fill volumes. He can hear the front door slam in response.

 _Well that went well_. Recently everything they did descended into some version of this. He supposes that’s what you get with two people who were basically just bits of trauma taped together pretending to be human. Later when it does end for good it ends up being his own fault anyway.

When Black does finally chuck him he can honestly say he had not been expecting it. He had thought it was going so well, well not _well_ but they had a routine and he had assumed it was working for both of them. He recalls with no small amount of self-loathing of how he had just assumed for a few days after that he’d get a note from him saying _where are you dickhead, you know I was joking_ but of course he doesn’t. He wonders exactly what aspect of himself was the hardest to deal with, was it his bitter, caustic personality, his strangeness, the walls around himself that he’d carefully built over years… or something else? Either way Black was always going to get sick of him eventually, Severus had merely hastened it and he’s glad he did, glad because he’s better off this way and Black had merely been a misguided stopgap for something that was too big to repair. A sticking plaster on a gaping wound.

But in his head at night in the echoing quiet of his chambers he forms the words he might say if he were a man to say such things: _I’m so sorry for what I did, can we please just go back to the way things were and I promise I’ll try not to say so many shitty things this time_. He would never say them. Not again. Not ever.

At least his time was his own again and he was if nothing else used to being alone. And if the space between the walls of his rooms that used to be a comfort were now suffocating and cold, well that only served to illuminate his folly in letting it go on so long. Needing others for personal fulfilment was a habit he had given up long ago.

When Remus asks what happened he tells him _We couldn’t make it work_ , which is true enough. It couldn’t have lasted forever. He was sick of slumming it with Snivelly anyway. And yeah maybe he sometimes cries in the shower, or when he’s doing the dishes, but that’s probably just his PTSD flaring up again. A couple of times he’d almost gone to apologise but he couldn’t do it, something about it made him feel like he was baring his throat.

When Remus is out of the room Tonks had looked at him pointedly. “You ok?” She had asked him.

“Yes.” He had said.

“Are you sure? Because-“

“Pretty sure.” He said with a raised eyebrow. “Honestly Nymphadora you’d think you’d know me well enough to know I’m hardly going to get upset over fucking Snivelly.”

“Don’t call me Nymphadora,” Tonks had replied and that had been the end of it.

He’s stopped sleeping again so he starts going back to his therapist, and they play the game where she tries to get him to talk about Severus and he doesn’t. It’s not relevant, he tells her.

Though sometimes when he’s feeling particularly fragile he thinks about that first time, not that time he drunkenly mauled him in the kitchen but their proper first time, in a bed like adults. He had invited people over for beers and at some point during the night it had been him and Snape alone in his kitchen.

“Took your time.” Snape had said to him and he hadn’t known if he meant the thinly veiled excuse he had concocted to get him over or him coming into the kitchen to find him just now.

“You could at least pour me a drink.” Sirius says because he couldn’t think of something better to say and it sounded vaguely flirty.

Severus of course doesn’t, just stares him down in that way he has and says, “You look good tonight.” And Sirius, who had spent a good hour on his appearance that night, shrugs like it hadn’t occurred to him to care.

“It’s a shame all these people are here.” Severus continues.

“They don’t have to be.” Sirius says quickly. “Just- just wait right there.”

He goes into the living room and calls out to the room, “Alright you shiftless freeloaders, the night's over kindly piss off now.”

“Um? Sirius what the hell?” Remus asks which was of course a fair question.

“I’ll explain later.” Sirius says through gritted teeth. And to the rest of the room he says. “Yes that’s right, off you fuck.”

As he’s shoeing them out the door Harry calls to Snape through the kitchen entryway, “Sirius has gone mad, we all have to leave.” And Sirius sees Snape shrug back lazily.

Later he thinks that everyone right then had a fair idea what they were up to but neither him nor Snape had cared. For some reason they had never cared what anyone else had thought at all.

Remus had confronted him later, “You’re not… I mean you’re probably going to laugh but … Are you..?… You’re not sleeping with Snape surely?”

“Yeah, I am.” He had said.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Remus had asked.

“Oh yeah.” He had said emphatically, nodding.

“Subtle.” Snape tells him once they’re gone.

“The fuck do you care?”

“I don’t.” Snape says.

Sirius takes him up to his room, his bed isn’t made and there are books and clothes covering the floor. Sirius starts grabbing at clothes on the bed and flinging them in to the corner of the room, “Look, I’ve got a few rules –“ He starts to tell Snape.

“No you don’t.” Snape tells him.

“I don’t?”

“No. No rules. If I do something you don’t like say so and I’ll stop. Take off your clothes and get on the bed. And be quick about it I don’t have all night.”

Something hot shoots through Sirius at that and he looks at Snape. “Fuck yeah,” he says. “Yeah ok.” He immediately forgets what his rules were going to be, he was going to make them up as he went along anyway, and starts undressing. So far, he thinks, this is going better than anticipated.

“Bloody hell Black,” Snape says when he’s done, “middle aged men aren’t supposed to look like that, did you not get the memo?”

Sirius tries to affect a self-effacing sort of look.

“I’m trying to decide if I hate you for looking like that or if I’m turned on.”

“And?”

“Right now I’m turned on. Later I’ll probably hate you.” Snape says. “Oh and you can quit that look, as if you don’t know what you look like.”

“Fine.” Sirius says and stops trying to look demure or whatever, he should have known Snape wasn’t into that shit anyway. “Your turn.” Sirius tells him.

“Don’t get too excited” Snape says, starting on his approximately 3,000 buttons. “I hardly look like that.” He nods at Sirius.

“I’ll decide for myself how excited I’ll get thank you.” Sirius says. “Anyway, you think I want to fuck myself?”

“Black yes, that’s exactly what I think of you. I’m only surprised it’s come up so soon.”

“Ha bloody ha.”

He’s still a skinny little fucker is his first thought eyeing a sharply protruding clavicle that looks like it was broken at one point and healed wrong. The thing is though, he looks better than he ever remembered him looking, his hair looks like it’s had a wash and even his teeth seemed whiter these days. And there’s something else about him; it’s not just that he’s strong with a layer of hard muscle that he never remembered him having before, there’s something in the way he holds himself, Sirius can’t quite put his finger on it. He’s sort of fucking fit. Though maybe he always had been and Sirius was just noticing it now. Snape sneers at him defiantly, all pale, scarred skin and hipbones, like he’s daring him to make fun of him. Sirius can’t bring himself too though. He steps closer so they’re almost touching.

“And you?” He asks him. “Will you tell me if I do something you don’t like?”

Snape trails his eyes down his body then back up again slowly, “Something tells me that’s not going to be a problem.”

The thing about Snape was that he would keep you at arms length with his terrible, wounding way of speaking to you but then he could look at you like you were the only thing in the world, like it were Christmas and you were the very thing he had asked for. It was genuinely disarming. That first time Sirius had let Snape fuck him on his unmade bed with its dirty sheets because in all honesty he had tried to think of the last time anyone had looked at him the way Snape had and he had come up empty.

—

Severus is not very surprised when Lucius gets in touch and he agrees to see him though it’s bound to be more trouble than it’s worth. He suggests the Hog’s Head though he will of course be seen but he’s not doing it in secret, he’s had enough of that. It’s not like he has a house to entertain company in anymore and he could hardly invite him to Hogwarts. He knows Aberforth won’t care, he’s had worse than Malfoy inside these walls, though in truth, perhaps not for a number of years.

Fresh from Azkaban, Lucius looks older and thinner than when he last saw him and he’s greying, though of course so is he. (And Black, he thinks, though he’s not meant to think of him. He had always thought Black was extremely vain but he had realised during their time together that he had been curiously insecure about how he’d looked, though he spent a lot of effort pretending he wasn’t. Severus had thought he had only looked better with age anyway, not that any of that matters anymore.)

Anyway when he first sees Malfoy he thinks he looks tired and withered but he soon discovers he’s still a pompous ass. He gets up to get them drinks. “For Merlin’s sake Severus don’t get me that cheap crap you drink.” Lucius says and Severus finds that comforting in a way he can’t describe.

I assume you know what you’re doing Severus, Aberforth says and he nods but can’t help noticing Aberforth’s hand unconsciously checks his wand in his robes and he clocks three, four, five wizards watching them closely, he wordlessly casts a simple motivation revealing spell of his devising, not mind reading exactly but he imagines it wouldn’t work if you weren’t at least a reasonably skilled Occlumens. It can’t tell him what they’re thinking exactly, just a feeling he’ll get if someone poses any real immediate threat. He picks up nothing he’s worried about. Now days most people wish him harm, but as long as no one’s planning on hexing him then and there that’s fine with him.

“You know this will do nothing for your reputation Severus.” Lucius says.

“Do I look like I care?” He replies.

“No.” Says Lucius, “But perhaps you should.”

“It’s of no consequence to me.” He tells him.

“As you like.”

Severus says nothing and wonders if they are capable of carrying on an entire conversation comprised only of bland platitudes. He takes a sip of his firewhiskey, it’s good he has to admit, much better than the swill he usually drinks.

“How is Draco.” Lucius says.

“He’s good.” Severus replies. “He’s doing well. He thinks he’s in love.”

Lucius smiles. “Does he? Good. That’s good.”

“Is it?”

“Being in love can only be good, Severus surely you of all people agree?”

“Me of all people?” Severus says.

Lucius just raises his eyebrows slightly.

“You know he won’t take my letters.”

“Ah.”

“Perhaps if you speak to him, ask him to meet me. He listens to you.”

“I think you have the wrong idea there. That boy has never listened to me.”

“You’re wrong about that of course. Severus please.” Lucius says, and he looks desperate. Severus thinks I bet that’s the first time that man has ever said that word. “Just one meeting, nothing more. I – I miss him. I miss my boy.”

“Lucius.”

“Severus when have I ever _”

“I swear to god Malfoy if you finish that sentence I’m getting up and walking out of here.”

Lucius smiles sheepishly. “Yes right. All those times.”

Severus shakes his head, but he can’t keep from smirking, though it shouldn’t be funny at all. “Yes all those times.” He says. “You colossal shit.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a maybe.”

“Thank you Severus. You’ve a good friend.”

“Better than you deserve.”

“Yes. There’s one of yours actually.” He nods in the direction of the door.

“One of mine-?” Oh. Shit. Of course he frequents this place, the fucking degenerate. “Can this day get any worse?” He says out loud. First this, then damn Black. Why now?

“I heard about you two. Quite the talk of the town you were.”

“Well that’s ancient history.” He says and accidentally catches Black’s eye from across the room. Black nods at him, his arm around a curvy woman with dark eyes and bushy hair. He nods back and tries not to scowl.

“That’s that woman from The Three Broomsticks isn’t it?”

“Hmm.”

“They look… cosy.” Lucius says as Black smiles widely then kisses Madame Rosmerta on the mouth.

“I’m sure I don’t care.” Severus says and downs the rest of his whiskey. “Shall we go?” He asks Malfoy as he watches them find a seat. Her laugh rings out across the pub. Looks like he’s found someone to laugh at his terrible jokes, he thinks bitterly.

“Or,” says Lucius, “you could fetch us another drink and we could stay here and watch them. Don’t look at me like that you know that’s exactly what you want to do.”

Severus purses his lips and gets up, yes it is what he wants to do, though he never would have said it, don’t say a word he tells Malfoy.

As horrendous bad luck would have it he and Black end up at the bar at the same time. Bugger it, he had just wanted to keep tabs on him, not speak to him.

He motions for Black to order first, and he does so.

Severus can’t help noticing what he orders. “Pumpkin juice?” He says, and it’s the first thing they’ve said to each other in months.

“Yeah well. I’ve been going to meetings haven’t I.”

Severus nods.

“You look good.” Black says to him and he rolls his eyes at him in response. What a ridiculous thing to say.

“Listen. What are you doing with that piece of shit Snape?”

“That’s my business.”

“Surely you know what people are going to think.”

He motions to Aberforth for two more of the same. God this was a terrible idea, he should just leave. Though if he does Lucius is most certainly going to get beaten five ways to Sunday and though he probably does deserve it he’d rather not have that on his conscience.

“There you go I was right.” Severus says.

“What?”

He nods in the direction of Black’s date. “She had her eye on you. I told you that.”

“Oh fuck off.” Sirius says.

“I’m glad you’ve finally found each other.” He says.

Black looks like he’s going to say something then changes his mind. He holds up his pumpkin juice, “I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Of course I am.” He says a little too sharply for his own liking.

“Could have fooled me.”

Severus looks at him. He wants to tell him he looks good too. Great in fact. Sobriety suits him. Or perhaps it’s just plain happiness. All these years and he still finds his handsomeness startling. “You will keep it up won’t you Black?” he asks. Sirius shrugs.

Severus’ drinks come and he takes it as his cue to leave. “If she-” He falters then starts again. “If she’s the reason you’ve stopped drinking then for god’s sake Black, stay with her.” Strangely enough he finds he means it. God knows he couldn’t help him. Severus Snape and Sirius Black were bad for each other, everyone else knew that, it was about time he did too. And as far as closure goes he supposes that was going to have to suffice.

Sirius was stalking Hogsmeade as Padfoot, waiting for Rosmerta to finish work when he had heard someone say Snape was in the Hogs Head with that piece of shit Malfoy. He hadn’t quite believed it. Surely Severus wouldn’t be that stupid? When he had picked up Ros he suggested they go to Hogs Head. Strange of you to assume I would want to visit a rival establishment on my night off she tells him. He had laughed it off and taken her there anyway.

Sirius Black please tell me you didn’t know he was here, Ros says to him when they get there. How could I? he asks her. He asks Snape about Malfoy when he gets up to the bar and of course he tells him nothing but he hopes that he would be able to tell if he was in trouble or not regardless. Though he decides he will stick around and watch out for him anyway because you never fucking know with that bastard. He could be bleeding out in front of you and barely raise an eyebrow.

Back when they were together he’d been there when some drunk wizard had thrown a bottle at Severus in the middle of Diagon Alley, _Murderer_ , he’d snarled. The bottle had hit him in the head and caused a nasty gash and Severus had not done a thing, and the only reason Sirius himself hadn’t hexed the piece of shit into next week was because Snape had held his wand arm down with surprising physical strength, “keep walking Black,” he had said with an eerie calmness. Back at Grimmauld Place Sirius had tended to his wound for him, (“I do not need you fussing, I am quite capable of tending to a such small wound myself.” “Stop squirming. And this is hardly small.”) “Does this happen often?” He had asked, trying to keep his voice calm. “From time to time.” “You should have told someone, it’s not right.” “This is my life Black, this is just how it is.” The Snape he knew hadn’t backed down from a fight in his life, he would take any excuse for a brawl, and something told him he hadn’t done so this time out of maturity; it had seemed more like penance. Later Sirius had gone back and found the man, punched him in his stupid fucking face until his knuckles were bleeding, and yeah it hadn’t helped any but it made him feel better. He hadn’t told Severus.

Snape seems to have the idea that his first shaky steps into sobriety were somehow to do with Rosmerta when he had thought he had made it clear it was because of him. Though it was probably better that way anyway. He decides he will start believing that too. Ros was funny and cute and he liked spending time with her; it had been fun, but so far, casual. Though maybe it was about time to make it more than casual. She was exactly the kind of girl he used to imagine ending up with – beautiful, smart, tough. On paper, they were perfect.

“We’re good together aren’t we?” He asks her.

She laughs at him and her teeth are straight and white, just like his. She often laughed at him, good naturedly though, in a way that made him feel good about himself, not like Snape who when he laughed it was always to rub your face in something. “If you say so Sirius Black,” she says but her smile doesn’t leave her face and Sirius thinks that she agrees.

He takes a sip of his pumpkin juice as an excuse to survey the room again and winces, he bloody hates the stuff, what he wouldn’t give for a beer right now. He pays particular attention to the wizard at the back with the grey hood who’d been staring at Snape and Malfoy the whole time he’d been there. Just you try it, he thinks and palms his wand in his jean pocket. If someone had told him when he was younger that he would someday be sitting in this dive preparing to defend those two Slytherin creeps he would have said they were barking.

Ros starts telling him about her night involving two underage wizards and a particularly inept aging spell. She’s a good storyteller, funny and charming, her pacing pitch perfect. If she was a muggle she could be in movies he thinks, her eyes sparkle when she talks and light up her whole face, she pushes her thick hair back carelessly with her hand, just like he does when he knows people are looking at him. He thinks about Snape and his narrow face, his thin, lank hair. Oh gods did he hate to be watched. Severus hadn’t shaved tonight which wasn’t like him. He must have been preoccupied. Sirius thinks about what it would feel like running his nails down that stubble and he swallows thickly.


	4. Chapter 4

“You spent Christmas alone.” She says.

“Obviously.”

“Why is that obvious? It’s not to me.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Wonderful.” He deadpans. At some point he had started being honest with her and now he can’t seem to stop. He wants to lie and say he prefers it, he wants to tell her to mind her own business. He wants to get up and walk out.

“Some people find Christmas to be a very lonely time.”

“Do they.”

“Severus, we’ve been through this. When you stonewall me there’s no way we can get anywhere.”

He spreads his hands out, “What do you want me to say? I miss him? What’s the point? It’s not going to help anything.”

“Do you?”

He shrugs. Admitting to that would be unthinkable. “It’s better this way. We had nothing in common and we disliked each other immensely.” He parrots.

“So you’ve said before. Perhaps you’d like to talk about your break up today? It might be good for you. Cathartic.”

“I doubt it. We fought, we broke up. The end. It was inevitable.”

“What did you fight about?”

He sighs. “The usual. He was drinking too much. I didn’t like it.”

“Why didn’t you like it?”

“Isn’t it obvious? He was killing himself.”

“You didn’t like watching him hurt himself.”

“Despite my reputation, no I do not like watching people get hurt.”

“My apologies, I was trying to imply you cared about his well being in particular.”

“Well you’ve got that wrong. I couldn’t care less.”

“Very well. How did he respond?”

“He told me to mind my own business as he usually does. Did.” He says.

~~~

“I need it. Just leave me alone Severus. I don’t tell you how to lead your life.”

“You could tell me why.” He tries. “You never talk about it.”

Black laughs scornfully. “And why would I talk to you? Of all people.”

“Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe I-“

“What? Maybe you what?”

He sighs. “That maybe I would understand?” That wasn’t it but close enough.

“You? You and I have nothing in common. You mean nothing to me do you understand that?”

“Sirius.” He says and that’s when he makes his first mistake. Normally he would go home, let him sleep it off. Later Black wouldn’t bring up what he said and neither would Severus. But instead he puts his hand on top of Sirius’s and just for a moment his mind slips, reaches out. It’s an accident, he doesn’t mean to but the result is the same. There’s a jolt and suddenly he’s struggling to find breath, each breath is laboured, each breath is an effort. It’s dark and grey and he can see very little and he’s alone save for the bones at his feet. He tried not to trip on them as he staggers forward he’s not sure to where — GET OUT he hears in his mind and he feels a sudden shove. He snatches his hand away and that’s enough to break the connection. He takes one big shuddering breath, how? he thinks, how did he survive that? “Why didn’t you tell me?” He gasps.

“Seen enough have you?” Black snarls at him, clasping his hand to himself like he’s been burnt.

Severus shakes his head, and backs away, “I’m sorry.”

“How dare you.”

“I didn’t mean-“

“How often have you done that? You sick freak. Like prying to people’s minds do you Snivellus?”

Severus blinks. “Don’t worry I won’t make that mistake again.”

“No you won’t, because we’re done.”

~~~

“There you have it. He was right of course, I am a freak. I couldn’t even control it. Maybe I didn’t want to. I violated him and he was right to say what he said. He’s better off without me that much is for sure.”

Of course, that wasn’t quite the end of it. Perhaps if it were things would have been different. He had given her the redacted version, the one that didn’t contain his signature reflex to counter attack. “Perfect.” He had replied to him then, Occluding as hard as he’d ever done, his voice detached and emotionless. “Now that I’ve realised what a mess you are you’ll be doing me a favour. You were a good fuck Black but I think I’ll be done with you now. And if you think I wanted to be in that cesspit you call a mind you’re even more deluded than I thought you were.”

“Get out.” Sirius had spat at him, his voice low and seething. Though that was rather the point. He had left and he hadn’t looked back.

Telling the truth was one thing but he was still a Slytherin and he could still keep a few cards up his sleeve.

“And yet you worry about him.” Her voice cuts through his reverie.

“I didn’t say that.”

“My mistake.”

“Look.” He says wearily. “The thing about Black.” He swallows. “I’ve seen things, more than most, the things I’ve seen and done and God knows I’m not saying this to boast, the things I’ve done they would have defeated, they did defeat very many strong wizards. But Black, what he’s been through, well, I’m not sure even I would have survived that. It’s unimaginable. But he did.”

“You admire him.”

He pauses. “I know him.” He says finally.

—

Potter wants to marry the Weasley girl, which is all well and good except that now he has to attend the engagement do which will of course be packed full of bloody Gryffindors and one in particular that he would like to avoid, for the remainder of his life if possible. And yeah he knows they’re adults now and house affiliation means next to nothing but he’ll still feel out of place, he’ll still feel like he doesn’t belong and he still can’t quite get rid of that irritated feeling he gets when he sees one of them, even though and here’s the kicker, he can probably call more than one of them something approximating a friend now.

So he goes because of course he must and it’s held at their apartment, which he must admit they’ve made look rather pretty with floating candles and throw rugs. He eyes up the balcony as soon as he arrives, it’s surrounded by potted plants and strung with lights and looks like a reasonable escape plan for when trying not to look at Sirius Black gets tedious. He’s the first there because he’s not good at parties and he’s never been able to figure out when to fashionably arrive at things. Black of course would always arrive anywhere just after everyone else did and Severus had never once heard him apologise.

Harry and Ginny install him on the couch with a bottle of cold beer and fuss over him and he gives them an old photo of Lily that he had found among his things and hastily wrapped between a bit of old parchment because he hadn’t known what to give them and he thought Potter would probably like to see it. Lily was probably about eight when it was taken and she’s smiling cheekily at the camera while the wind whips at her hair and both Potter and the Weasley girl cry which was not what he had intended.

He had seen Lucius again this morning and had to tell him that Draco won’t see him and he had to see that look on his face. I’ll work on him he tells him and he knows Lucius knows him too well to be fooled by his fake confidence.

These days it seemed as if everyone he knows is broken, he had been used to it just being him.

Shortly after Granger arrives with Ronald Weasley in tow and they talk, or rather she talks at him very fast about the current thinking in prison reform, most of which he believes she has developed herself. He still keeps up with the journals and Granger’s name is a common occurrence. The topic is of particular interest to himself, he’s seen Azkaban ruin too many lives (his life. Shh that’s beside the point he chastises himself) and he makes a mental note to talk to further on the subject in a more professional capacity.

“Now that we have disbanded the Dementors we have an opportunity to create a system that’s not only more effective but more humane.” She takes a breath. “My manager thinks that if I can implement this correctly I’ll be on track to be head of department within five years.”

“Granger. That man is clearly an idiot.” He says.

“Well I suppose he may be reaching a bit-“

“—If you can implement this you’ll be well on your way to becoming Minister for Magic.”

She colours and gives him a small smile. “The wheels of government turn more slowly than I’d like.”

“I’m sure you won’t let that stop you.” He says dryly.

When Black arrives, late as predicted, it’s with her, which in hindsight he should have been expecting, and he moves on to the firewhiskey. By the time he speaks to him he’s drunker than he was planning to get.

“I’m sick of you looking like that.” He tells him waving his finger at him in the hall on the way to the bathroom. Black was looking, as usual, obscenely good in jeans and a form fitting t-shirt that showed off his brown muscled arms. He wanted those arms to push him up against the wall. He resists the urge to cajole and taunt him until he did just that. You’d think he’d be too old for that rubbish by now.

“Like what?” Sirius laughs.

“You know how.” He tells him. “Now move out of my way Sirius Black I need to get through.”

Black laughs some more. “You’re stupider than most people think aren’t you?” He teases him.

“Don’t tell anyone.” He whispers.

Sirius was finding the presence of Severus Snape… distracting to say the least. Severus is drunk and flirty with him in the hallway and he’s embarrassed to realise he’s half hard. He wants him. So apparently you can’t just turn that off. He had thought for sure that would have gone away by now.

Rosmerta was here with him tonight though things with them were just a little strained right now. His nightmares continued to wake him screaming and he knew they scared her, as did the fact that he refused to talk about them, or any of it. Severus had nightmares too so Sirius hadn’t felt like such a freak there as he might have done. He remembers the way Severus used to hold him after, his fingers stroking the nape of his neck, I’ve got you, he’d repeat, you’re safe. He never once asked Sirius to explain and it wasn’t something they’d ever talk about in the cold light of day, in fact they both just pretended it never happened. Before that if he were asked he would have guessed Snape would have reacted with his usual cocktail of brash awkwardness, never would he have guessed at the calm and sturdy shoring that Sirius would come to expect, then rely on. Ros tries though, god she really does, though he’s given her no reason to.

“Alright babe?” Ros asks him.

“Of course.” He smiles thinking I would kill you and everyone in here for just one beer. In a lifetime comprise entirely of bad decisions, sobriety was perhaps his worst.

He gets through most of the night okay anyway, though he had thought that he wouldn’t and seeing Harry so happy makes his heart swell and he tears up a bit. He starts to think that maybe it’s even worth it given that he will actually remember all this later. Later he decides nope, he would rather be drunk. It’s his fault of course.

At some point in the night Rosmerta with her perpetual friendliness and stubborn determination to see the best in everybody gets drunk enough to talk to Snape, who is of course by this point pissed as a newt.

He nods in their direction and says to Kingsley Shacklebolt “Not good that.” The last thing he needs is those two comparing notes.

Kingsley laughs at him. “Want any help?” He asks.

“Please.”

“Hi honey what are you two talking about?” He starts with, not caring how obvious he’s being.

“None of your business.” She tells him. He glares at Snape, if you can hear me he thinks, fuck off. Snape gives him a humourless shit-eating smile but stays where he is.

“Kingsley here has just been telling me about his trip to Italy, lucky bastard, you gotta hear this hun.” He rambles, though he couldn’t give two shits about Kingsley’s continental excursions it was the only thing he could think of.

Luckily the man doesn’t need any prompting to talk ad nauseum about his holiday. “Oh yes if you haven’t been you must go.” He starts and Sirius calculates Severus is going to last about three minutes of this, max.

“I haven’t,” says Ros, “I bet the food was to die for.”

Kingsley says, “It was. We ate tiramisu in Florence that was like, how to put it…it was like the best sex you have ever had in your life.”

Two things happen.

Sirius looks at Snape. Snape looks at Sirius. Sirius very quickly realises what he’s done but it’s too late. They both blush and look away which makes it even worse. Ros sees everything. Shacklebolt, oblivious, keeps talking but Ros goes quiet. He has no idea what Severus is doing during this time because he avoids looking at him like Severus is the sun during an eclipse.

“Excuse me,” she says after a couple of minutes that feel like hours and leaves them.

Sirius goes after her, telling himself it wasn’t as obvious as it felt, and anyway, he’ll make it up to her. He’ll do something grand and stupid, he’s good at those. Also he’ll lie his ass off. He’s good at that too. The irony that everything would have probably been ok if he had just left them the hell alone is not lost on him.

Severus watches him go and tries not to smirk too much.

“I think you must have scared them away Professor Snape.”

“I think you might be right Minister.” He says, allowing himself a small self-satisfied grin.

Earlier Ginny had introduced him to a colleague from her office which in hindsight might have been some kind of set up because he’d been following him around all night and Severus knows for a fact he’s not that good a company.

He offers the man a cigarette and lights it for him. They both stand smoking, tapping ash over the balcony and he supposes it’s preferable to making small talk with the Minister for Magic.

“Don’t you have people your own age you’d rather talk to?” He asks finally.

“I guess not.”

“Suit yourself.”

Tap tap. “I didn’t teach you did I?”

“Nope. Boarded away.”

“Good.” If this was going where he thinks it is he’d rather not be someone’s teacher fantasy. He’d never been into that. (Except that one time with Black, which had been…well… anyway at least now he knows that it had always been good for him too. To that end the night had been a resounding success. Also watching Black squirm had always been in his top two things to do.)

“If you don’t mind me saying professor Snape, I would let you destroy me. Excuse my bluntness.”

“Not at all. If you don’t mind me saying that I would.” If the kid was trying to throw him off balance he would have to try harder.

“Something tells me I’m not going to regret coming tonight.”

“Oh you will definitely be coming tonight.” He says because he’s drunk and it occurs to him. Now if only he could be this suave while sober.

—

Severus walks out of his shrinks office and gets into the lift to the lobby. He had told her about the kid from the party and he had thought she would have disapproved but she only seemed to encourage him. Why was everyone in his life so keen to see him shacked up?

Though he hadn’t told her how afterwards it had only made him feel a sort of aching loneliness, nor how the reason why he went home with him in the first place was because he had reminded him of a young Sirius Black.

And that was what Severus was thinking about when he almost bumps into Black as he exits the lift at the bottom. It gives him such a start that he forgets to act intimidating.

“Oh! Hello!” He exclaims.

“Hello to you too.” Black smirks.

“What are you – that is – “

“What am I doing here? This is where I go to get my head read. You knew that?”

“No I did not. This is where I go to – this is my therapist.” He says possessively.

“I didn’t know you were seeing someone?”

“Black, of course I am.”

“Yeah right. So we have-“

“The same shrink. Looks like it.”

“So she knows-“

“A lot more about both of us than either of us realised, yes.”

“Why didn’t you know this, super spy?”

“I’m not sure.” He says slowly, he was thinking the same thing himself.

“Also why haven’t we bumped into each other before now?”

“This isn’t my usual day. Even you may recall that student examinations are held at this time, my schedule has been rather inflexible of late.”

“Look, can we continue this conversation while we walk? I’m suddenly not in the mood to keep my appointment and you can insult me just as well outside as in.”

“I can.” He replies. “I’m rather flexible in that regard.” Black smirks at him and he wonders at just what point their conversation had devolved from vitriolic shouting matches to harmless banter.

Out on the street they’re surrounded by muggles scurrying from their day jobs to the pubs as the sun goes down. Severus adjusts his scarf tighter, it’d been a cold day and the temperature had started to drop even further.

“Thanks for ruining my night the other night.” Black says while they walk.

“Me?” He says. “You did that all by yourself.”

“You couldn’t have just stayed away from her could you?” He rubs his hands together and blows on them. Typical Black, always underdressed.

“You do realise she came to me?”

“Don’t give me that shit. You did it somehow I’m sure of it. As if you weren’t hoping to get to her somehow.” He had been but fuck Black for knowing that.

“You sound paranoid Black.”

“You forget I know what you’re like Snivellus.”

Snape turns on him before he has time to think and balls his fist in Sirius’s thin jacket. People stream by, most don’t bother to give them a second glance. He blows air out between his lips in frustration and pulls off his scarf. “Here.” He says throwing it over Sirius’s neck and pulling the ends through the loop and adjusting it for him. “You fucking derelict.”

“At least I’m not a freak.”

“But you are a complete waste of space.”

“Do you still have my photos?” Sirius asks out of nowhere and he suddenly realises he still has his hand on Black’s chest.

“I have no idea.” He lies. “I might have thrown them out.” 

Was I all that terrible Black? He thinks. “I should go,” he says instead.

“You should.”

He can feel Black’s breath on his face. “Stop.” He says but it comes out barely a whisper.

“I know a place.” Black says. “No one would see us.”

“This is a bad idea. I should go home.”

“I know.”

Sirius tells him the muggle hotel he takes them to is the last place anyone with any affiliation to the wizarding world would be. He can’t possibly know that though looking at its dull beige modern-professional décor he’s tempted to agree.

“And how do you suppose we pay for this?” He murmurs to Black in the lobby, a confounding charm was the obvious answer but he’d rather not bother.

“Oh don’t worry I always carry a bit of muggle money on me. You never know when it will come in handy.”

Severus scoffs, “Of course you do.”

When they find their room Sirius wrangles with the ridiculous door opener card and tugs Severus in after him.

“So what have you bought me here for?” Severus asks innocently once they get in the room just to relieve some tension.

“Snape you haven’t been able to pull off a decent innocent face since the seventies.” Sirius says and kisses him. His kiss is fierce and insistent and tender all at once and he tastes just like he used to. “Fuck, I’ve been wanting to do that since the party.”

Had he? How had Severus not known that?

“It’s very inconvenient you know.” Sirius says as they both kick their shoes off and strip. There’s no need for preamble and they certainly no longer have any shyness in each other’s presence.

“What is?” Severus asks distractedly.

“How much I want you.”

“You don’t want me, you just want to have your cake and eat it too.” He says rolling his eyes.

“Whatever.” Sirius says, he pushes him onto the bed and falls on top of him.

“How much?” Severus breathes, he can feel Sirius’s growing hardness between them.

“What?”

He pushes Sirius away, he suddenly wants to make him work for it. “How much do you want me?” He annunciates the next words like he’s trying to terrify first years, “Convince me.”

“What are you-“ Sirius starts and goes to kiss him again. Severus pushes him away. “Oh fuck you.”

Sirius studies him and Severus wonders if he’s going to just leave. Would serve him right. But instead he looks at him bemusedly. “Yeah alright. Fuck yeah I want you. I want you to hold me down and fill me with that huge cock until I’m screaming, until I can’t fucking walk. Please Professor. I need it.”

Severus hadn’t really been expecting it and he swallows thickly.

Sirius straddles his lap. “Please.” He says again. “It’s all I can think about.”

“Beg me then.” Severus says curling his lip at him.

“I thought I was.”

“Do better.”

Sirius gets a murderous glint in his eye that Severus has seen a thousand times, he’s strangely relieved he can still put it there, it makes his palms sweat and his heart beat faster. “Do you want me on my knees huh Snivellus?” He says. “You want me to crawl to you on my hands and knees and debase myself in front of you? Is that what you’ve always wanted, you fucking freak? Is that all I’m good for? Huh? Being fucked by you? Say it. Say all I’m good for is a hole for your cock. Say it.”

Severus flips him to the bed and pins him with his arms. “Yes, you were made to take my cock. You’re my own personal whore.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck me like I’m your whore.” Sirius says and Severus kisses him, open mouthed and wet, and he’s achingly hard, embarrassingly so, but then again Sirius is too, he can feel him like a hot length of iron beneath him.

“You’re not supposed to kiss whores.”

“God Sirius I don’t care.”

Sirius groans and they rock into each other, Severus doesn’t bother taking his weight with his arms, he knows Sirius likes to feel him heavy on top of him and for all their talk they just grind together lazily, like they used to, they don’t quite kiss but their mouths and tongues come together, wet, gasping. They don’t speak either but neither of them are quiet. It’s wet between them, they’re soaking each other, leaking cocks sliding together and Sirius’s big hands are on his ass, grabbing and kneading. Sirius liked his ass, or so he said, he’d told him many times.

“Are we still going to fuck?” He asks Sirius. And he can’t help it, he’s thinking of his girlfriend at home, he imagines her knowing what he’s doing to him.

“Christ do it now before I come all over you.”

He pulls off and lunges for his wand on the nightstand, he mutters a lubrication spell into his hand and smears it on himself, Sirius turns over, on his hands and knees for him, though he’d have preferred the other way. No matter. If what Sirius wants is to be fucked like a common whore he’ll give it to him.

When he enters him, first just breaching the harm rim of muscle with the head of his cock, a muffled sob escapes Sirius, God, he says.

Black clutches the headboard as Severus fucks him into it, the noises Black is making are indecent and not at all conducive to Severus lasting long, those high needy cries every time Severus thrusts into him. He angles himself to get him just right, in that spot, the one that makes Sirius sob; he Occludes a bit just to make sure he doesn’t come too soon. He may never be the most desirable man in the world but he’d always been good at mastering a thing when he’d put his mind to it. And by god had he put his mind to Sirius. He hits that spot over and over with strong, steady thrusts, hard enough to make him feel it; he wants to see him come apart, wants him to think of him every time he as much as sits for the next week. “God too much,” Black sobs, “don’t stop don’t stop don’t fucking stop...” So he doesn’t, he keeps at it, taking out the months of frustration on him, months of self denial, looses himself in the tight wet heat of him. By Gods he’d missed this, there was really nothing in the world quite as good as fucking Sirius Black.

“Sev- fuck,” He hears, “– I’m coming – oh my fucking —” And Severus feels him tighten and contract around him and Sirius cries out and convulses hard as he fucks him through it, prolonging it for him, squeezing out every last ounce of pleasure.

He takes him with abandon then, merely seeking his own release as Sirius supports himself weakly against the headboard and it’s the thought that he’d just made Sirius come without a hand on him that does him. He feels his balls draw up and he drives into him one more time and lets go finally, pulsing deep into him. He drops his head back and groans a low guttural sound as ecstasy takes him and he fills Black with his seed.

They don’t embrace after, that was something they used to do, but not something they do now, apparently. That would be what Black’s girlfriend is for, he supposes, whereas Severus merely administers the orgasms. Black had just looked at him after, heavy lidded, what the fuck was that? He’d asked. He had to admit he didn’t know himself. “You came didn’t you?” He’d replied defensively. “That’s the understatement of the year. God you’re good at that, it’s almost annoying.” And Severus had tried really hard not to grin.

“You slept with that guy at the party then?” Sirius asks now beside him on the bed. Severus can tell he’s reaching for casual but he doesn’t quite manage it.

Severus takes drag from his cigarette and rearranges the duvet with his other hand. “I didn’t think you saw that.”

“I was jealous.”

“You had no reason to be.”

“A little young wasn’t he?”

“Probably.”

“He looked familiar.”

“No Black he didn’t.”

“Where’s he from?”

“How should I know?” He sighs. “He’s been living abroad. His parents sent him away during the war. I’ve no idea where.”

“Oh. Probably just looks like every other dumb young slut then.” Severus thinks that’s a little rich coming from him at this particular moment but even he knows better than to say that minutes after his cock has been inside him. “How was it then?” Sirius’s asks.

“It was okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Just okay.” He doesn’t tell him of the piercing self-loathing he had felt after, the wave of self-revulsion that nearly had him doubling over and sent him fleeing back to the cocoon of his dungeons, but of course he’d never really been one for casual, meaningless sex.

“Was he better looking than me?”

“Come on Black. Can we stop playing 20 questions? What do you think?”

“I think I just let you fuck me to within an inch of my life and I need you to say it.”

His hand itches to touch him, to stroke him in a soft, affectionate way and he smothers down the impulse. “You know he wasn’t.”

“You loser.” Black says.

“What about you?” He asks, like a challenge. “I suppose you’re having lots of loving, life-affirming heterosexual sex or something terribly dull like that.” He wrinkles his nose and passes Sirius the cigarette. Though at one point in his life of course he would have killed for exactly that.

“Oh.” Sirius smiles. “Yeah. No, of course we are. It’s great. It’s really…” He trails off.

“Oof, that bad.” Severus says trying not to smile in triumph.

“No, not at all it’s just, well, it’s not…” He gestures between them. She hasn’t fucked you so good you’ve wept you mean Severus thinks.

“She is very beautiful Black.” He says instead.

“She is isn’t she.”

“I imagine intensity of orgasm isn’t a particularly reliable indicator of the suitability of two people to one another.” But he doesn’t want to say that, he wants to say someone like you should be fucked properly. What a waste.

“I imagine you’re right.” Black says in a clipped voice then glances up at the clock.

“Black, go back to your girlfriend.”

“Fiancé.”

“Sorry?”

“Not girlfriend, fiancé.”

He swallows. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Sirius gets up, shoves himself into his jeans and grabs his shirt from the floor. He stuffs some paper muggle currency on the night stand (Pound notes his brain supplies, ugh there’s a reason he eschews muggle things; they remind him of his fucking childhood.) “I guess I’m late or whatever so you will you...?”

“Hm? Yes, yes of course.” He waves him away with his hand. Almost like old times he thinks, Prince Sirius commands. My liege, he used to tease when Sirius would act like that. He doesn’t feel like teasing him now. Now he just feels cheap.

“Black?” He calls to him when he’s at the door. His whole body recoils at what he’s about to say. “You know this has to be the last time.”

Sirius blinks back at him. “Oh.” He says like it just occurred to him and he does a small stupid laugh and then stops. “Oh.”

They look at each other for the last time as lovers, they were never friends so at least he need not mourn that.

“Hey,” says Black, “do you think we could have made it work?”

“No.” He says. “Too much history.”

Black leaves and Severus hurls one of the bed cushions at the door after him and he feels like screaming but he takes a deep breath and finishes the cigarette in his hand instead. He doesn’t leave until he’s smoked two more, one after another, staring blankly across at the wall. It’s only when he’s leaving he realises the bastard took his scarf.

Ros asks him where he’s been while Severus’s come is still dribbling out of his ass and yeah he feels guilty, of course he does. He’s not a monster. He tells her he ran into Remus after his session. So only one part of his story is a lie. (Quite a big part Black don’t you think? So now it’s his voice in his head.) He’ll have to ask Remy to cover for him later and he already knows what the look on his face will be. Christ what’s wrong with him? Tomorrow he’ll hardly be able to walk, he can tell that already -- how’s he going to explain that away? Typical Snape, he’ll fuck him till he practically blacks out but can’t even bring himself to touch him after. And then he’d said that pompous thing about the suitability of two people to one another sounding like a twee maiden aunt from some bloody Victorian novel. He hadn’t even cared about his engagement either, just raised his eyebrow in that bored way he had with him. Sirius has wanted to provoke something in him other than that facetious disinterest but of course it hadn’t worked. If he’s honest he wanted him to be spitting mad.

“Who’s scarf is this?” Ros asks from the bedroom doorway.

Shit. “Mine babe.”

She looks at him with a strange expression. “Want me to give it wash?”

“No! Ah, no. There’s no need.” He holds his hand out for it and when she walks away he brings it to his face and breathes in, it smells like him. Not a monster, he thinks, everything’s fine and I’m not a monster.

The closest they’d got to talking about all that stuff that they pretended didn’t affect them was one time at Sirius’s watching the muggle movies that Sirius liked with his old projector that he’d set up in one of the upstairs rooms with the overstuffed couch and cushions. He’d had an idea that Severus might like it and he had, he’d been fascinated by the mechanics of the thing, tried to work it out with that calculating mind of his, the way Sirius used to watch him figure out potions in class many years ago, like it was a problem to be solved, not a set of instructions to get through before lunch like it was for the rest of them. Sirius used to like watching him do that. Though he would have died before he would have admitted it. The actual movies themselves held less fascination for him however, and he often got bored or tetchy well before the movie was over.

They had been watching, what was it? Some crime-noir thing that Sirius had thought Snape would appreciate.

“Muggles do like their death wrapped up in bows.” Says Severus, “In real life it’s rarely so pretty.”

“You ever kill anyone?” Sirius asks and then he remembers. “You know besides...” Everything that had happened during his extended holiday in the veil was a bit hazy, like a story he’d half read. He’d never really wanted to know too much about it he supposes, though people always assumed he’d want to know everything. (That wasn’t quite true, he had in fact asked Severus once how he’d survived at the end, With tremendous bad luck, he’d replied, and Sirius had thought, fair enough, he’d be fucked if he was going to tell anyone about any of the shit he’d been through either.)

Snape looks at him incredulously. “What do you think?” He asks.

“You ever think about it?”

“Everyday.” He says. “I think about it every day.”

“None of us did anything we didn’t have to do.”

“Didn’t we? Let me ask you this Black? Did you ever kill anyone that didn’t deserve it?”

“That’s hard to say.”

“That’s a no then. It’s hard to come back from that. It changes you.”

“That’s why you didn’t accept that Order of Merlin?”

“I’m not a good person, not even close. Though, you’ve always known that.”

“I don’t think that anymore.” He whispers.

“You do though.”

Sirius swallows, his heart beating faster. “I liked it.”

Severus just looks at him curiously.

“When they died. Sometimes I liked it.” He wonders if he’s gone too far. “So. You’ve got your fucked up thing, I’ve got mine.”

Severus keeps looking at him with eyes blazing then he surges forward and kisses him and Sirius kisses him back with desperate, furious kisses and they fuck there on the couch with people dying in the background, and Sirius makes love to him because of every terrible thing he’s done, not in spite of it. His dark creature, his black prince.

Sirius wonders what his younger self would have made of all that, his near obsession with that man, with his spitefulness, his bitterness, his questionable past that might just near his own in atrociousness, in misery. And what an insufferable thing he must have been back then, wide-eyed, aggressively carefree, and innocent of course, relatively so. He cared for no one then, not really, no one so much as himself. What a terrible tragedy then that he had to be so ruined in order to learn how.

—

“Don’t you think it’s about time you moved on?”

“To what?”

“You can’t enjoy spending so much time alone surely?”

Oh for the love of-- “I do actually.”

“It’s not good for you.”

Severus rubs at his temples, give him strength. What was it about happy committed couples that made them so mind meltingly tedious. Must you surrender half your brain as well as your balls upon first sign of betrothal?

He had just finished lunch with Draco and his girl at Draco’s townhouse. The food had been good and the company adequate but if the sight of this perfectly presented couple and their tastefully understated yet obviously expensive apartment hadn’t set his teeth on edge Draco’s pretentious nattering concern surely had. He had been in a terrible mood since he had unadvisedly slept with Black the week before last and this really wasn’t helping.

“You could date you know, you’re really not that hideous.”

“Draco! You’re being terribly rude. Severus is perfectly handsome.”

What on earth was going on?

“Yes thank you everyone I—“

“Oh darling who was the man we met last night wouldn’t he be perfect for Severus?”

“I think—“

“He was in banking wasn’t he?”

“No not him the other one, the tall one with all those hotels.”

“I hardly—“

“Of course! What was his name—“

“Listen you smug little brats!” He shouts finally, all this self-satisfied busy bodying was starting to give him a tension headache. “Who I choose or do not choose to enter into personal dalliance with is not, you may be shocked to discover, up for debate or examination like yesterday’s Daily Prophet! Do you know what that means?” They don’t answer so he continues. “It means the next time someone sees fit to ‘set me up’ as I believe is the common parlance, I shall take great pleasure in brewing my very largest cauldron of Amortentia and inserting it so far up their arse that every time they as much as burp they fall into an ever deeper and enduring but sadly very much unrequited love with yours truly.”

“Yeah alright don’t go on about it.” Draco mutters.

“Don’t test me Draco you of all people should know I’m capable of it. Now some of us actually have work to do, though I imagine you wouldn’t have heard that word before.”

He sees the look shared between the young couple and he’s aware this latest rant will do nothing to quash the general opinion among his friends and acquaintances that Severus Snape is not ok.

He helps himself into his coat. “And Draco see your bloody father. He may be an enormous twit but he’s the only one you’ve got and he cares for you deeply. Some of us have never had that privilege.”

“Alright.”

“Swear it.”

“Yes alright I will.”

“I’m going to need you to say it. I’m sick to death of watching him mope.”

“I swear I will see my father.”

Astoria gives him a conspiratorial smile as she sees him out and Severus thinks she looks rather pleased with him. She likes you, Draco had told him, shortly after they had started dating, I have no idea why.

“Thanks for lunch.” He tells her. “As always you’ve been more than gracious. Draco must know you’re far too good for him.”

“Oh he does.” She agrees. “Come again soon?”

“Of course.”

He confronts his therapist about Severus and she points out matter of factly that they could have at any point talked to each other and figured it out, this she says is exactly what she has been talking about, the importance of honest and open communication in a romantic relationship, wouldn’t that have been nice Sirius? If you and Severus could have talked freely about your past as well as your wants and fears? Do you think we could work towards that in your current relationship?

He sees her point but it still pissed him off. Out of spite he tells her about sleeping with Severus that afternoon. Really that was all your fault he tells her. What do you think, should I be honest and open with my fiancé about that? Because I gotta tell you I don't think it will go down all that great. He wonders if it matters if your therapist dislikes you.

He keeps seeing her regardless, this one last thing they share, and at least he can enjoy peppering her with intrusive questions about him just to annoy her. You know I can’t answer that she says on repeat.

But life goes on, there’s a wedding to plan after all, and after having overcome some initial jitters he and Rosmerta are in a good place. If at first she was hesitant to go over the line with him, he had convinced her this was a good idea, they were both getting on, neither of them were really the marrying type, and you have to admit, they looked good together. It seemed to his mind the perfect union. And of course it had also occurred to him that his dear mother and father would have been appalled he was marrying a bar maid but that was just a nice little bonus. I don’t mind if you want to sleep with other people, she had told him, as long as you tell me, I expect the same freedom from you. Deal he had said and congratulated himself on finding the perfect woman. That other person can’t be Severus Snape, she had added. What? I wouldn’t—yeah ok, he had conceded and wondered how much she knew. It was a mistake anyway, he knew that now, one he won’t be making again. Being around him made him think too much. He’s much better when he doesn’t see him.

At night he still dreams he’s back there, not dead but not quite alive either, wandering, mad. Or he dreams they are there, and they talk to him, as they never had in life, did you really think we would let you go? They ask. Sometimes he fights, and wakes screaming but other times he goes to them as he would a lover, surrenders as they kiss him, one last time. Those nights he doesn’t wake at all and in the morning he doesn’t remember where he is.

If you’ve opened this I know I’ve got your attention. I flatter myself that perhaps you are now feeling some of the terror and hurt you have inflicted on countless others. You will not keep ignoring me. You will find a muggle penny coin in the package, it is a portkey. Use it if you want him to live. If you do not come alone he will die. If you make me wait, he will die. Test me if you like. But just know that if you do, he is already dead. Will it be worth the risk Severus?

Severus puts the letter down on top of his third year marking with shaking hands. Next to it is an old black and white scarf, his scarf. The one Sirius had taken from him that afternoon. The last time he’d seen him. There’s a slash of deep red across it, wet still, not quite dry. He’s seen too much blood in his life to mistake what it is.

He stands up and puts on his robes, takes his wand and tucks it within them. He goes to his desk and reaches for the coin. He hands no longer shake. He knows what he has to do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops sorry for leaving it on a cliff hanger :/  
> Hopefully this one makes some kind of sense, I’m not really great with ‘action’ scenes, I’m trying to get better!

The world whips and swirls around him and in a moment he’s standing on rough stripped wooden floorboards, he squints to see in the dim light and struggles to get his bearings. _Lumos_ , he hears and a single naked bulb suspended from the ceiling is lit and at the same time he feels the unmistakable blunt poke of a wand nudging at his throat.

“Wand.” A familiar voice demands. He reaches into the folds of his robes. “Slowly.”

He holds the wand aloft, quickly surveying the room as he does so. The room is large, old, decaying, with bare rafters and stripped walls. Many of the windows are made of broken stained glass. It was hard to decipher the iconography but his first impressions were that they were muggle. He didn’t recognise the place at all, he really could be anywhere but he knew from his childhood that muggle places of worship often had those kinds of stained glass windows, not that his father had had much time for religion of any kind.

He drops the wand and it clatters to the ground. He’s not entirely sure what purpose that will serve, but at the very least stalling for time would give him precious moments to figure out some kind of plan.

“This will be so much easier if you cooperate.”

“So you’ve said before.” He says. “Healer Bitterwood.”

“Surprised?” She asks and takes her wand from his neck for a moment to levitate his wand to her.

“Not really.”

She smiles coldly at him then promptly snaps his wand in two and throws the pieces into different corners of the room. He tries not to wince, he’d liked that wand, if anything it had been an improvement on the original and it was such a bugger to find a good one.

“Never mind, I imagine we’ll wipe that smug look off your face before long.” She kicks an old wooden chair to him and it hits him in his calves. “Sit.”

As soon as he does magical ropes bind his arms and his legs to the chair. Just off Heath St, he thinks, he sees it every week, just before he rounds the corner to ride the clanky elevator up to the 5th floor office, the one with Odelia Bitterwood, Magical Mind Healer on the door. An old abandoned muggle church, with broken stained glass windows. It’s as good a guess as any.

“He’s not here is he.”

“Oh no. He never was. I just needed to get you here. And it worked didn’t it, I knew it would. Quite the hero complex you have there. Oh don’t look so worried Severus.” She laughs. “It was my blood, Sirius merely left the scarf in my office.”

He keeps his face impassive though he is aware his lip twitches slightly.

“You know there’s no need to pretend. You forget, I know everything about you. Even the good things.”

He hadn’t forgotten. “Can we get on with it?”

She laughs again. “Oh we will. I wonder? Will it be his face you see as you die?”

He twitches again.

“You see? I do know everything don’t I? Now where were we? I suppose you are wondering why I’m doing all this?”

He shrugs. “I imagine it has something to do with the letters.”

“You imagine it has something to do with the letters. Well aren’t you clever. Yes they were me of course. But never mind that now. Have you really destroyed that many lives that you can’t figure out who I am?”

He stays silent. The answer to that was… complicated.

“Does the name Aden Crowe mean anything to you?”

He almost laughs. Sweet Merlin, him? After everything? He nods instead.

“You remember his name at least. That’s one thing. Was your face the last thing he saw? I suppose it would have been. He was so beautiful and the last thing he would have seen was your ugly, sneering face. You murdered him. I’ve done my research, there’s no point in denying it.”

“I won’t deny it. Yes I killed him.” It was public knowledge anyway, every single sordid detail of his life during that time. His trial had made sure of that. He supposes he would do it again but he needn’t tell her that.

She closes her eyes and brings her hand with her wand in it to her forehead.

“The fiancé.” He says, as much to the empty room as to her.

“There.” She says quietly. “So you do know me after all.”

“He felt no pain.” He says. “You should know that. It was quick and painless.” It had been his face he’d seen as he’d died, ugly yes, but not scornful. It would have only been compassion that he would have seen, if he had cared to look. Not that it would have made a difference.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?! You took everything from me! He was my life, my future, everything. Odelia Crowe. That was supposed to be me. But instead you murdered him and I stayed Bitterwood. How appropriate. A bitter lonely spinster.” She spits. “You were supposed to be on our side. You’ve got them all conned haven’t you. Everyone it seems but me.”

He says nothing. She’s not wrong.

“I didn’t want this. I’m not like you. I won’t enjoy it. I thought for awhile I could cajole you into feeling some kind of guilt, that you would admit to all the lives you destroyed during our sessions and then I could get you put away like you deserve. Hence the letters. Foolish of me, I know that now. You never felt any guilt, any wrong doing.”

He did, but he didn’t think that would help.

“I was with child you know, we were going to have a baby. I lost her that night. The night I found out.”

He flinches. But he had known everything he did would have far reaching consequences hadn’t he?

“And don’t bother spinning your lies, I don’t want to hear how you had to do it, how you were forced to, it makes no difference.”

He thinks back. The man had been unremarkable, as were the circumstances around his death. He may not have remembered him at all if it wasn’t for Draco.

He’d been a ministry man of course, mid level, no one too important. He’d taken a few bribes here and there, nothing major just low level stuff, he had been far from the only one. It must have seemed harmless. Plus the Death Eaters had paid well. It hadn’t been all intimidation; they’d had resources. Other than that he was your average wizard, beers with friends on weekends, an alright job, engaged to be married, a few years older than himself. He’d looked him up. At some point he must have decided he wanted to stop, had an attack of conscience maybe, more likely the requests escalated beyond his comfort, they always did. Unfortunately you didn’t say no to Voldemort, even if it was through his lackeys, so he was bought in. Routine stuff. He was doomed before he even got inside, he had to have known that.He was entertainment, whether or not he lived or died was inconsequential to the Dark Lord’s plan. Voldemort was known to offer up wizards like Crowe as a reward. Some he had been able to save, he would loosen locks where he comfortably could, confound and implant memories, some he could not.

He remembers it was just after Draco had taken the mark. Draco was already a dab hand at Cruciatus by then, he had a knack for it. Though of course so was he at that age. Severus had been summoned, he had been upstairs with Lucius and Narcissa (no more than shells of human beings then, though it was preferable to watching torture enacted for sport). Voldemort had looked at Severus slyly. We no longer need that blood traitor downstairs, he had said, tell Draco to see to it. We’ll see what that that boy is made of, don’t you think Severus?

Down in the dungeons he had found the poor man bleeding, half conscious and sobbing at the mercy of Crabbe and MacNair. He banished both from the room, his word held some clout then, though he’d be punished for it later. He’d have to watch his back. Draco had blanched white when he had told him, he’d looked so like a child. It was then he knew he wouldn’t let him. Maybe he had thought of his father upstairs, absent and ineffectual, wondered why he wasn’t doing this instead. More likely he hadn’t considered it. Do as I say, he had said and pulled out a small vial from within his robes. It had been quick, the man had simply slept and never woken. He held Draco’s hand as he cast the spell to slash the throat of the already dead man, muttered the spell for him as Draco took in shaky breaths. Don’t cry, he had barked at him, wipe your face, you did it, it’s over, now go to him, and for god’s sake don’t cry.

Could he have saved him? Would it have been worth it to risk everything he had built over years? To put the boy at risk, _her_ boy? (for it was him he did it all for wasn’t it, all of it). He never would have. He would make the some decision a hundred times over he was sure of it. Even so. What had that man done, Aden Crowe? He had committed a misdemeanour at best, and he’d no doubt regretted it. Severus had done much worse by the time he’d had his 18th birthday. But, he’d kept those boys safe and relatively unsullied, both of them who were now men. Wasn’t that the point?

“I didn’t have to do anything.” He tells her truthfully. “Though I tried to save as many as I could.” What would be the point in telling her the whole story? At best she wouldn’t believe him.

At worst she would.

“That wasn’t good enough!”

“I suspect not.” He says. It was his time now, he had known it as soon as he’d read the letter. He’d been living on borrowed time since the end of the war anyway. “Do it quickly.”

And perhaps it was fitting, this way. He was the one who couldn’t let things go, who dedicated his life to revenge, how could he fault her this? He thinks of asking her to loosen his binds and let him smoke one last cigarette, they could hardly kill him now. But no, better not to prolong it.

“I’m ready.” He says, she nods and her eyes shimmer, he believes her when she says she won’t enjoy it. “It’s easiest if you don’t think too much about it.”

And it is him he thinks of at the last, damn him, his crooked, easy smile, the way his eyes would crinkle at the edges. Better that he never knew, he decides.

“Oh I almost forgot! One last thing Severus, since I know you don’t value your own life half so much, you will die in the knowledge that he’ll be next. Perhaps you’ll even see him in whatever hellscape you end up in. He never quite warmed to me you know. He only kept seeing me because he knew you trusted me. Quite sweet really. If it wasn’t so pathetic. He won’t see it coming.” She smiles sweetly and it turns his stomach. Why’d she have to go and say that? For the second time in his life he had been so ready.

He jolts and pulls on his binds, they pull tighter and bite deeper into his wrists. He won’t be able to loosen them, not in time. She laughs at him and raises her wand and he knows he has only mere seconds. Casting wildly about the room and does the only thing he can do, he thinks of him, it gives him the focus he needs.

“Wingardium leviosa!” He shouts only moments before he hears her shout “Sectumsempra!”

A broken table barrels into the healer and sends her toppling, he had been trying for harder but at least his aim was on the mark, there weren’t many who could best him in non-verbal but he had never been as good at wandless magic as he would have liked. He’s too late though he realises as pain slashes through him, the Sectumsempra had hit him in the side, the pain is sharp and consuming, he can hardly breathe from it and he knows he’ll die soon if he can’t somehow stop the bleeding. He had just caught the tail end, he realises she had been meaning to flail him open. She had done her research; it would be a fitting end. Though Avada kedavra would have been kinder.

He has more pressing things to consider now though and he forces his attention away from the gaping wound in his side, she’s on the ground but still conscious. _Wand_ , he thinks, where’s her fucking wand, it’s not in her hand. She realises too and starts looking wildly around her. He spies it first on the floor about half way between them, she lunges just as he shouts “Wingardium Leviosa” for the second time. He levitates the wand out of her reach but a stab of pain twists inside him and he drops it and it clatters to the ground and rolls, and the healer laughs with glee and crawls for it. Idiot, he thinks, and gathers himself, focus old man, don’t fuck it up, not now.

With a roar he shouts it again, “ _Wingardium Leviosa!_ ” The wand swoops upwards right out of the healer’s closing fist and with all his effort he brings it to himself and finally feels his fingers clasp around it, hard and solid, behind his back. She’s on him straight away, scratching him and prying the wand free from his fingers. He knows he’s not strong enough to keep it from her, not when he’s lost this much blood, he feels his consciousness slipping, he makes one last Hail Mary hope that he’s right about where he is and not two thousand miles from home and with all the strength he has left he disapparates and then he knows nothing.

“Draco! Oh my god, Draco hurry!”

“What on earth is - oh shit. Astoria fire call St Mungo’s, tell them assistance is needed immediately, quickly, do it now... Come on mate, you will not die on me, I won’t have it. This is quite the top quality shit you’ve got yourself in this time old man, ok I can do this, _think_ , yeah alright here goes...”

“Moony my old mate, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Sirius says, Ros is making tea by the sink and she waves but Remus doesn’t see, he looks harried and Sirius wonders if this isn’t just a house call.

“You haven’t heard have you?”

“Heard what? We’ve just got in.”

“Sirius I’m on my way to the hospital, I thought you’d want to know.”

“Ok you’re scaring me now mate, what the buggering fuck’s going on?”

“It’s Snape.”

Sirius suddenly feels like all the air has gone out of him. “Severus?” He asks in a small voice.

He tries to find his voice to ask what the fuck happened but he can’t seem to, all he can hear is static, he feels Ros’s hand on his arm and he shakes it off.

“-he’s in St Mungo’s,” Remus is saying. “Harry’s there with him now.”

“Is he—?” He can’t seem to finish that sentence.

“He’s been hurt, that’s all I know.”

“Take me to him.” He can’t think of anything else, he just needs to get to him, he’ll deal with the rest later. Remus pauses, he looks at Rosmerta as if asking her permission. “ _Now Remus._ ” Sirius says.

He nods. “We can use your Floo.”

He grabs his coat from the back of the chair and sees Ros looking at him. I’m sorry, he mouths but he’s already left and she knows it. Her eyes blaze at him. He runs.

“Hurry up!” Sirius barks.

Close to an eternity had gone by and the woman behind the desk had still not managed to retrieve Severus’s room number. Any pretence of self control he’d possessed had gone the moment Remus had said those words.

Remus puts an arm around his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, my friend is upset. Please, take your time.”

He looks at him incredulously, he’s about to repeat some iteration of his original sentiment with more expletives thrown in for good measure when the woman holds a card aloft in triumph.

“Twelve!” She shouts. “He’s in room twelve!”

He sets off running leaving Lupin to make polite thanks behind him. He finds the room and bursts the doors wide, he sees Harry with Ginny, and Draco Malfoy with a girl he’s never met. And there he is, eyes closed, unmoving in the bed hooked up to tubes, he looks so small and he’s so pale, almost grey. Lifeless.

He feels like he’s going to be sick.

“Is he okay?” He asks the room not taking his eyes off him. No one speaks.

“Somebody say something!”

“Ah he’s...Uhm ...” Says Harry and it’s only then that he notices that both Draco and Harry’s faces are drawn and pale.

“He’s alive.” Says Draco.

“It’s bad?”

“We’re not— they’re still telling us to wait. He’s lost a lot of blood, he has a deep cut to his abdomen, he was in pretty bad shape when they bought him in. There has been some ah internal injuries that were apparently more difficult to heal. They say he’s stable though, he was feverish but that seems to be under control now.”

“Someone did this to him.”

“Yeah.” Harry says. “It looks like it. It was Sectumsempra. Draco found him, he- ah - recognised it, if it wasn’t for him administering the counter curse he’d probably be dead.”

He looks at Draco, “Thank you.” He says, “Thank you.”

Draco nods awkwardly.

My god, hadn’t he told him these attacks would escalate? Didn’t he say that? _Where were you though Sirius_ , a voice asks. He should have been there. Why wasn’t he? He knows deep down that Severus would have been for him.

He pictures him lying in this hospital bed, without him for so long. He should have been his next of kin. As it were nobody thought to tell him, except as an after thought. Did Severus think that too? That he meant that little to him?

He sits next to him and takes his hand and kisses it ignoring the sideways looks everyone is giving each other. He thinks of how he’d made slow, sweet love to him just before the end, I need you, Sirius had told him, You have me, he’d replied, you have me. He’d been such a fool. “I’m here now,” he tells him. “It’s me. I’m here.”

“Babe,” He says low just to him. “I need you to fight. Please. I need you to do this. And I know you’ve never listened to me before so... well, the thing is I still need you. Remember what you told me? I know you Severus Snape, I know what your word means.”

He breathes and closes his eyes to tears that threaten, he leans in and whispers, “Don’t leave me here Snape. Don’t you dare.”

From that new vantage point something catches his attention out of the corner of his eye. He swipes roughly at his cheek. “Who’s wand is that?”

“Severus’s.” Harry says.

“No it’s bloody not.”

“He was holding onto it when he Apparated into our foyer.” Draco says.

“Well it’s not his.”

“Are you sure mate?” Remus asks.

“‘Course I’m sure, I would know.”

“Then who’s is it?”

He picks it up and looks at it, he’s seen it before. Benefit of PTSD paranoia, he knows. He cups Severus’s cheek gently with his hand. “Remember what I said.” He ignores the calls behind him and he’s disapparated before he’s even left the grounds.

“Sirius!” Severus bolts upright and pulls out an intravenous drip attached to his arm, by the sight and smell of the potion alone he would guess blood replenishers and sedatives.

“Well that answers that question, I’d say definitely not one sided.” Says a voice.

“Shh Draco.” Says another.

“How long?” He asks the room, his voice is roughhewn, hardly recognisable and his mouth feels like sandpaper. How long had he been here? He at least appears to be alive, there still might be time.

Someone appears in his view with a glass of water, it looks like Potter. “Professor, you’re in St Mungo’s. You were badly hurt so you’ve got to keep these tubes in, they’re helping. Can someone go find a healer please?”

He takes a sip from the straw Potter is proffering and tries not to choke. “Of course I’m in St Mungo’s you idiot boy, where else would I be? Florean Fortescue's bloody Ice Cream Parlour?”

“He’s ok.” Potter says to the room with relief. “Professor you have no idea how good it is to hear you say that.”

“Potter listen to me. How long have I been in here and do you know where Sirius Black is?”

“Ah ten hours? Slightly more? And ah, no not currently... that is to say he was just here but he ah left.”

There still might be time. “Did he say where he was going? Potter think.”

“No, he just ran out. After he saw this.” He picks up the wand that’s sitting on the table next to his hospital bed. Black would have known as soon as he saw it, god damn that man, why did he always have to be so bloody impulsive.“Professor what does Sirius know that we don’t?”

“Harry-” he tries but he’s cut off by a stab of pain in his side, he breathes through his nose, he feels woozy and his head feels heavy. “Harry, if Black finds the owner of that wand I assure you that that one of them will soon be dead.”

“What the hell’s going on Professor? Remus went after him -I—.”

“No, you. It has to be you. You’re the boy who found seven horcruxes. You can find one idiot middle aged wizard. I can’t do it, they’ve pumped me full of too many sedatives. I’ll be no help to anyone.”

“You really are on quite a high dosage Professor I’m actually surprised you’re awake.”

“Don’t worry about that right now.” He says, he’d been inured to many of the effects of those potions years ago, they must have given him a lot for him to have been out for as long as he had been. He gives Potter her name, the location of her office and anything else he can think of. She’ll still want to go through with her plan he thinks, and if she couldn’t kill him, killing Black would definitely be a close second. She may not have her wand but Sirius should know never to underestimate someone in a corner. Severus had taught him that if nothing else.

“Bring Black back alive Potter, I’m begging you. And make sure he doesn’t hurt her either, he mustn’t go back to Azkaban.” Though that point was moot because he would never let him, off the top of his head he would say he had Imperiused him into doing it. He’d think of something.

_Wingardium fucking leviosa_ , he thinks with a groan as Potter leaves and two healers swoop in to prod and poke at him and hook him back up to various tubes, _what kind of inane first year Gryffindor nonsense was that?_

He finds her disturbingly easily, though he supposes without her wand she wouldn’t have wanted to go very far. There were smears of blood in the elevator and on the walls like someone had leaned against them to steady themselves, then a trail of dripping blood leading to her office.

“Hello Sirius.” She says when he arrives, she’s sitting behind her desk and there’s a bloody towel wrapped around her right hand. Ha, he smirks, Severus must have given as good as he got. That’s my boy.

Sirius grips his wand tighter, though it’s still hidden within his pocket. “I’ve come to tell you I’ve decided to find another therapist.”

“Indeed?”

“Hm. One with less psychopathic tendencies.”

She looks at him, every inch the professional, the only difference between now and their usual sessions was that her hair was falling out of her usual perfect bun and there were steaks of blood across her blouse. “We never liked each other did we?” She observes.

“No, we didn’t.”

“I know a lot about you though.”

“I suppose that’s true.” He concedes with a sneer.

“For instance you say you don’t like psychopaths but you seem to be head over heels in love with one. And he is, you do know that don’t you Sirius? Severus Snape is as evil as they come.”

His lip twitches, it occurs to him he’d never actually told her that. He’d been very careful not to let on. “Don’t you dare talk about him.”

She laughs at him. “I suppose you thought you were being subtle didn’t you? Poor little Gryffindor, about as subtle as a Hippogryph. And don’t even get me started on that sham of a marriage you’re planning. But something tells me that’s over now anyway.”

If she wasn’t such a psycho, he thinks, she would actually be a bloody good shrink; she’s perceptive as hell. Though, as she’d said, he’d never really been one for subtlety.

“Clever,” He says, “you’re going to die anyway, but good on you for being clever I guess. Severus thinks I’m the good one in our relationship but I think you probably know I’m not. I’m going to enjoy every minute of this.” He says raising his wand.

“I almost killed him though didn’t I?” She says dreamily. “I came close.”

“We’ve all almost killed him sweet heart.” He counters. He nods at her hand. “He give you that?”

She nods. “Splinched two of my fingers off.”

It’s Sirius’s turn to laugh, it sounded like something that fucker would do.

“Well enough of this shit, not that it hasn’t been great.” He steps closer, wand at the ready.

“Yes I agree, it’s actually worked out better this way I must say.”

“Yeah,” He says uncertainly, “I’m glad you agree.”

“Now I can actually see the look on his face when they tell him you’re dead.”

Sirius does a double take, it’s only quick, but that’s all she needs. Before he knows it she’s pulled a gun from under her desk and points it at him, she’d had it there all along, she’d been waiting for him to show he realises.

He may be a pureblood but he knows what a gun is. He shouts a stunning spell but it too late, there’s a deafening bang, then behind him a voice - “Arresto momentum!” Everything happens so fast it’s hard to tell in which order, he braces himself for a hit.

But it doesn’t come.

Instead there’s a bullet hovering in mid air a couple of centimetres from where he stands, it spins where it is for a minute, then drops to the ground harmlessly. The healer is slumped over her desk.

“You didn’t kill her did you?” He hears a familiar voice behind him. “I promised him I’d stop you.”

“Not yet.” He says. “Jesus Harry, you really do have a gift for being in the wrong place at the right time.”

“What are you doing with that wand Sirius?”

“You shouldn’t really see this actually Harry.”

“Because it might give me nightmares? You’re joking right? Look just put your wand away for a second hey? Let’s think about this properly.”

“I don't think so. She needs to pay.”

“He’s ok Sirius, he woke up and he’s ok.”

“He is?”

“Sirius look at her, she’s unconscious. Do you really want to kill someone who can’t defend themselves?”

“Yes. _Fuck_. No. I’m just... Christ. What if this never stops?”

“Then he has us. You and me. And the rest of the order too. Look I’m just going to take this gun away from her before she wakes up.”

“Yeah right. And fucking tie her hands up or something Harry would you?”

“Shit yeah ‘course.”He takes her hands and binds them behind her back with magic ropes. “Can you imagine if I had to tell Snape I let you die because I forgot to tie her up and disarm her when I had the chance? He’d kill me with his bare hands.”

He grins and wonders if that’s actually true, maybe it is. Stranger things have happened.

Harry rolls his eyes at him. “You’re both insane,” he mutters.


	6. Chapter 6

Severus is perched on a wheelchair with his head out of the hospital room window smoking a cigarette. Sirius is fairly certain he’s not supposed to be doing that but he imagines most of the staff wouldn’t be game enough to tell Severus Snape off. There were only a couple of people still alive who were stupid enough to do that.

“They let you do that?” He opens with.

Severus shrugs.

He’d came as soon as he could, after they’d tied his therapist up (that was a brand new sentence for him) they’d patronused for an Auror and waited with her. Harry had patronused Severus too: “Padfoot alive and safe, we have her, waiting for an Auror.” After that there’d been statements to give and questions to answer and Aurors had been sent to the hospital to get statements from Severus and Draco and then before Sirius had known it it had been well after two in the morning. So he’d gone home to sleep reasoning they’d probably kick him out of St Mungos at that time anyway. He was relieved to find his house empty when he got home, and then he felt guilty for feeling that way. He’d flooed to the hospital as soon as he’d woken and showered the next morning but as soon as he’d arrived he felt awkward and he realised he hadn’t actually put any thought into what he was going to say.

“You’re looking better than when I last saw you.” Good one Sirius, he thinks, really make him think you don’t give a shit. He was so well practiced at feigning indifference he wasn’t sure he could do the other. He finds himself a seat and drags it over to join him by the window.

Severus takes a lung full then stubs the cigarette out. “As I’ve been telling all of them, I’m perfectly fine. No one seems to be able to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to discharge me. But why listen to me, what would I know.”

“You mean you haven’t been able to bully or intimidate anyone into letting you leave? That’s shocking.”

Severus scowls at him. “If you’re not going to help me either you may as well leave.”

“You’re in a fine mood this morning.”

“Someone tried to disembowel me I’m allowed to be in a foul mood.” Severus says. “Black?”

“Yes?”

“You’re well? You’re- you’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

He nods and they both look away.

“It’s so good to see you—“ Sirius blurts. Alive, he means. “Fuck, never mind.” He has no idea how to compose himself, he feels like he’s flailing.

“Black.” Severus says looking at him. “Likewise.”

An awkward silence fills the room again. What he really wants to do is grab his charts, make sure he’s really ok, hold him in his arms, brush the hair from his face and gently kiss his brow. He really is fucked.

“Look, will you come home with me?” He settles for.

Severus looks at him and blinks a couple of times. “Is that-? Do you think that’s-?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Hogwarts, I had thought.”

“You need someone to take care of you.”

“Oh that. That won’t be necessary, I’ve lived through far worse than this with no help.”

“Let me anyway. Don’t argue, just say yes.”

“Would- would we be alone?”

Sirius purses his lips and considers what he’s really asking.

“Well?”

“I - I mean, I’ll make sure we are, I’ll make it ok, can that be enough?”

“I don’t know—“

“Just come home.” Sirius says and he finds those are the words he’s been wanting to say to him for months now.

“Sirius you know I can’t.”

Sirius says nothing. He didn’t actually know that. “Why?” He asks in an embarrassingly small voice.

Severus suddenly appears to find the rip on the arm of his chair particularly fascinating. “Black I’m glad you’re not hurt and I’m sorry I dragged you into this, god knows if anything had happened to you I would... but there’s nothing for you here. You don’t need to be here. Thank you for coming in to see me but I’m fine now. You have a fiancé at home, go to her, get on with your life.”

“What are you—Can you just say what you mean?”

“You’re going to make me say it?”

“Looks like it. Though I’ll be shagged if I know —”

“—I’m in love with you! Black, that’s why. I’m bloody well in love with you.”

Sirius swallows. Well.

“I can’t just stay with you. I can’t do casual and I can’t do meaningless. Not with you. It means too much to me. You mean too much. Ridiculous I know.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

“Is that all??”

“I’m in love with you too, did you not know? All of our friends do. You’re the last to find out.”

“For once can you not be so fucking glib? I just told you I was in love with you.”

“And I just said it back. Do you not believe me? That’s incredibly insulting, even for you. You almost died Severus. Do you have any idea how that felt, seeing you like that? It felt like my world had imploded and you say glib? Fuck your glib. If you knew even one tenth of what I feel for you your fucking head would explode. But you don’t because you’re a fucking monster. But I love you anyway. God, I love you. It’s killing me. And I feel amazing. I’m not sure why it should feel like both those things together but there you have it.” He takes a deep breath.

Severus looks like him with that look that he used to get sometimes that made him feel like he was the only person on the earth. “God why?”

“Why?”

“I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“I don’t think it works like that.” He says in surprise.

“I won’t share you Black. I will love you fiercely and jealously and I won’t share you.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“I’ll make it ok, you’ll see.”

“This isn’t just about your fiancé.” Severus says.

Sirius shrugs forward and nudges his leg with his knee. “You’ll come home with me then?”

“It’s still a terrible idea love.”

“I don’t see how.”

“You should know love doesn’t magically fix everything. If anything it makes it worse. How would we work, you and I? About as well as we did last time I’d imagine, only this time with my jealousy turned up to about eleven, you think I was insufferable before? Just watch me now.”

“How would I know that?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re the only person I’ve ... When? Huh? At what point in my life am I supposed to be falling in love with all these people? Azkaban? Shit. Fuck you and your assumptions about me. And I never once thought you were insufferable.”

“I’m your-? Me?”

“Who else?”

“Potter, I had assumed.”

“Well you’d be wrong.”

“God.”

“Can you stop acting like I’m a freak?”

“I don’t mean to it’s just-“ He surges forward and grabs Sirius’s shirt and kisses him hard and Sirius is so surprised he just sits there for a second until he hears Severus groan deep in his throat. Sirius moans in response and opens his mouth to him and slips his hands into his hair. They kiss a little too roughly for two people in a hospital room, there’s probably a little too much teeth, his hand in Severus’s hair is a little too tight and the burn from Severus’s unshaved face is just a little too good, the light in the room is bright and garish and Severus’s mouth tastes of cigarettes and it’s fucking wonderful and he doesn’t want it to stop —

“Oh sorry. I ‘spose I should have expected this.” A voice say cheerily from the direction of the doorway. “We’re supposed to be letting him rest though actually Sirius.” Harry adds with a smirk.

They pull away from each other guiltily, which he supposes is about right; the ink had barely dried on the save he dates he’d just sent.“Impeccable timing as always Harry.” He says roughly.

“Bed Professor.” Harry demands, if he’s judging them he doesn’t show it. “Then you can both take turns telling me what the hell happened yesterday.”

“Do I get any say in this?” Severus grumbles but they both agree he doesn’t.

Later they say Severus can probably be released tomorrow if his diagnostic spells are fine. _Talk to her Black_ he tells him before he leaves, he doesn’t have to ask who.

When he does it’s at her small apartment above the bar and he doesn’t even come close to making it ok.

“You slept with him didn’t you, after we got engaged I mean. You may as well admit it now.”

“Yes but only once.” He says.

“It’s not the cheating,” She says. “It’s not even the lying. Or the fact that you were in love with someone else. It’s that you asked me to marry you. You _convinced_ me. Do you remember that Sirius? Why? We were having fun. We could have just left it like that and all this would have been fine.”

He doesn’t have an answer for her. Why had he done that? To convince himself he’d moved on? To convince himself that it had never been anything to begin with? “I’m so sorry.” He says.

“Hey but he’s the best sex you ever had right? Remember that night? Remember how you convinced me I was crazy? Imagining things? That was fun. We should get married you said and I thought huh what am I doing worrying about all that then. And then you went and slept with him, almost immediately after. Didn’t you?”

Oh yeah that’s why. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. “That’s not fair.” He says, even though it was.

“Did you ever love me, do you think?”

“How is this helping?”

“It’s helping me. Go on, I want to know.”

“It wasn’t…” He closes his eyes, he did like her. He really did. You were the kind of girl the old me would have wanted, he wants to say. “I don’t think I’m really capable.”

“But you love him.” It’s not a question.

“That’s different, he’s…” In me, he thinks. “I sure as hell didn’t choose it. It’s – it’s broken me. I’m baffled as to why this has even happened.”

“That’s love Sirius. That’s what it’s like.”

“I wish it wasn’t like this. If I could choose it would be you, you have to know that. I’m certain I would have been far happier.”

“Can you just cut the bullshit?” She asks. “You’re not going to be able to charm your way out of this one Sirius. I’m fucking angry.”

He says nothing. He didn’t realise that was what he was doing.

“You can cancel all the arrangements,” She says finally. “I’m not doing it.”

“Yes. Fine.”

“Is there anything else Sirius? I’m tired.”

“Oh. Do you think you could pick up your stuff?” He asks her. “Like today?”

And that’s when she starts throwing things.

Severus does come home with him the next day. Sirius worries it’s more because he was too tired and drugged up to argue than because he had actually wanted to but he bustles Severus up to his bedroom anyway where he had laid out pyjamas for him. They’ll be size too big but they’d have to do.

It’s only then that he notices there’s a pair of Ros’s underwear on the floor, half hidden under the bed. Fuck. He’d thought he’d got everything. He grabs them and shoves them in his pocket. “That’s just uh—.” He shrugs uncomfortably. That’s it Sirius, he thinks, make sure you confirm all of his negative expectations of you. Why don’t you just throw back a bottle in front of him while you’re at it.

“Black I-“

“Get changed.” Sirius says cutting him off, whatever he was going to say wouldn’t be anything he wanted to hear. “Then get into bed, I’ll be up to check on you soon.”

It’s started raining heavily by the time he brings in Severus’s tea and his next dose of pain potion. To his surprise he finds Severus in bed and dozing. He settles the tray carefully on the side table and stops to look at him, his face soft and peaceful in the grey light of the waning afternoon. For a second he thinks he can see the man he would have become if everything were different.

“I can feel you watching me.” Severus says, his eyes opening. Despite his words he smiles warmly at him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“Never.”

“You need to take your potion.” Sirius says handing him the vial.

Severus does with barely a roll of the eye then passes it back empty. “Changed your mind yet?” He asks.

“No.” Sirius says and there’s an edge to his voice that he can’t keep out. “Have you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well that’s encouraging. I know this isn’t the Ritz but I thought at least the company might appeal.”

“I wouldn’t know about the former and as to the latter, yes it does, greatly. But Sirius, I wonder if it’s too soon. You talked to her yesterday I assume?”

“Hm. She threw things.”

“She’s missing a few items of clothing it seems.”

“God I’m sorry about that.”

Severus waves him away, as if to say, it is what it is.

“You’re not worried I might treat you the same?” He asks.

Severus shakes his head. “Only that you need more time to process. You were going to marry her Black. If you need time to mourn the loss of that life, that’s only understandable.”

“Is it?”

“Of course. You’ve given up a shot at normalcy, a man and a woman, death unto you part, it’s what we all dreamed of isn’t it? You could have had children with her for Christ’s sake.”

“I think that ship had long since sailed.”

“Even so, there was a chance. A chance that you’ve given up. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought of that.”

“Of course I have.” He thinks of what he had said to Ros: If I could chose it would be you. And yeah maybe part of him does wish he could have that, an easy, normal life, but it didn’t negate the following: “I’m fucking miserable without you.”

“That’s not the same as being happy with me.”

“Well it’s going to have to do isn’t it?” Sirius says, his patience finally snapping. “What are you really trying to say Severus? You’re going to have make your point because I’m getting sick of telling you I want you here. Which I do, by the way. I’m starting to think you don’t though.”

A crack of thunder shakes through the house and Sirius jumps. He feels like an fool, a grown man scared of a storm. He looks at him, daring him to make fun of him but instead Severus just pats the bed next to him, Come here he says, voice barely even a whisper.

Sirius does and god help him it makes him feel safe, this man who wants to comfort him even as they argue. Sweet Merlin when he fucks this one up it’s going to hurt. He takes a seat on the bed, if he’s going to have his heart broken he’d rather be sitting down.

“You beautiful, passionate, _infuriating_ man,” Severus says. “You’ve never let me get away with anything a day in your life, of course you want an explanation. Well here it is then, to the best of my ability. My dear, I never expected to love anyone again, but then there you were with your denim jeans and your smart mouth and your stupid bloody motorbike, and although it was the very last thing I guessed would happen, after it did it seemed to me that it was always going to be you all along. Who else could give me just as much as I dish out? Only you I imagine. What I mean to say I think Sirius is, I’ve wanted to be near you since I was eleven, I’m hardly going to stop now. But, I am a man of coloured history and I must be practical. I must be sure you know what you’re getting into. You know who I am, perhaps better than anyone, I may not be what most people think of me but I have killed, I’ve lied, I’ve tortured. For a noble cause maybe but I still did those things. The road to hell is paved with good intentions don't Muggles say? If there is such a place I’ll surely be going there. I willingly joined the most dangerous and abhorrent hate group our world has ever seen. I did that. I wanted to. And I liked it. At least for a time. I’m not a kind man, nor a soft one. There is no better person hiding under this veneer I promise you. I’ll be hard work; I’ll put up walls and lash out when you least deserve it. I hardly need mention my looks, you know of my failings there as well as anyone. But I will anyway in case you have by some miracle forgotten them. And you my little Gryffindor god, my Adonis, are exquisite, there’s not a person alive that wouldn’t want you, who doesn’t like being around you. It hardly seems fair. If you had any reservations at all how could I blame you?”

“Are you finished?” Sirius says. “You forgot ‘long-winded git’ in your litany of personal accomplishments.”

Severus gives him a small tight lipped smile and raises his eyebrow.

“Yeah yeah, I know, smart mouth. Yes I know who you are Severus, what you’ve done, please don’t forget I was there for a lot of it, I’ve known you a long time. Do you know why I propositioned you that first time? It wasn’t because you were just there, like I pretended, I didn’t pick you randomly. You are quite right there are easier people to be with if that were the case. I wanted you. I thought you were incredibly sexy, don’t look at me like that, you should know you are, you were... impressive, everything you’ve done, everything you are, you were the most impressive man I’d ever met and it was you, Snivellus, the boy I hated most my life. You’re brave and powerful and more than a little dangerous and on top of all of that, you’re a good man, probably the best of us. You did what none of us could. And hell yeah I wanted you. I couldn’t believe you weren’t fighting people off with a stick. Actually I couldn’t believe you wanted me back, I thought for sure you’d get sick of me. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, you know that right? Not everyone finds me as alluring as you do.

“Look, I know it isn’t going to be easy love. Or normal. But you need never worry for one second that I’ll regret this, I don’t need time to adjust. I think I’ve spent enough time apart from you for one lifetime thank you. I’m in for whatever this is, one hundred percent. And for what it’s worth I’m sorry it took me so long to get my shit together and realise. But I’m not about to let you go now that I have.”

Severus doesn’t say anything for long moment and Sirius starts to wonder if he’d been too much, you never know with Snape just how he’s going to take things.

Severus clears his throat. “On your head be it.” He says.

“Great! Let’s give it a crack.”

“How charming. How did I ever resist you?”

“You didn’t. You were always gagging for it.”

“You’re right.”

His eyes flutter closed as Severus cups his cheek. Baby I— he starts to say but Severus says Shhh I know. I knew all along. Good, he says, because I did, the whole time. He feels Severus’s lips brush over his lightly, briefly then his mouth is on his neck and Sirius arches into him instinctively.

“I’ve missed this,” He breathes. “I’ve missed your mouth.” His cock stirs traitorously as Severus’s teeth scrape.

“Severus you’ll have to stop that.” _Never stop._ Severus doesn’t, he’s never listened to him a day in his life anyway, he just continues that lavish worshipping of his neck with his mouth and teeth and tongue. Sirius sighs audibly. He’s hard now. Goddamn this man.

Severus’s hand is on his thigh, hot and heavy, he slides it up, up and Sirius’s cock can only throb in sweet anticipation. Sweet buggering fucknozzle. “Goddammit stop.” He says and pushes Severus’s hand away, pulling away from him.

“You’ve still not healed and you’re supposed to be resting, remember?”

“I’m all better.”

“You’re not.”

“Take your clothes off.”

“ _Stop_.” Sirius says but he’s thinking about it and he hates himself for it.

“I won’t tell anyone.” Severus purrs at him in that voice that makes him forget his own name.

“You bastard, don’t use that fucking voice with me.”

“Very well Black.”

“And don’t _very well Black_ me like you don’t know it makes me hard to hear it.” He says and takes off his shirt. “Shut up. You’re going to lie there and you’re not going to move and you’re going to let me suck you. And while I do you’re going to talk to me sinful fucking voice of yours like it’s your goddamn job, got it?”

Severus nods, he sees he has his full attention.

“I said, _got it?”_

“Got it.” Severus says deliberately, his voice dripping with sex and wry amusement.

Sirius pulls down the blankets then Severus’s pants. “You’re cocky for a man in plaid pyjamas.”

“I’ll remind you these are you’re— ooh dear God in heaven you’re going to kill me.” Severus says as Sirius slides him fully into his mouth, Sirius looks up through his lashes and sees that his head has fallen back baring his long, slender throat, his Adam’s apple working up and down. Sirius takes him deep in his throat feeling him harden, he can smell the dense musky scent of him and he grinds his still-trousered hard on into bed. He runs the flat of his tongue up the shaft and suckles over the plump head. Severus, as promised, talks to him in that voice, deep and gravelly and staccato, a narrative of filth that quickly descends into breathy grunts and curses as Sirius sucks him, uses every trick he has at his disposal to make him come apart. It’s not hard, he knows him, knows what he likes; Severus isn’t the only one who’s good at noticing things. When he finally feels his balls draw up and his dick throb hard he pulls his mouth away and Severus pulses hot thick ropes of cum all over Sirius’s face and neck and some of it gets into his mouth and Sirius looks Severus hard in the eyes and licks his lips and swallows him down like he’s starving then for good measure he laps up the rest that’s oozing out of the tip of Severus’s still hard dick. When he’s done with that he looks up and sees Severus looking at him, slack jawed.

“Jesus _fuck_ look at you.” Severus slurs. “I’m _obsessed_ with you.”

“C’mere.” He growls at him and Sirius crawls up the bed and before he can argue Severus encircles him in his arms and licks his face clean then unbuttons his jeans. He supposed he was going to pose a pretty weak case anyway. He’s aching, panting for him, but when isn’t he, I want you, he tells him, always. Severus only needs to enclose Sirius’s cock in his fist and pull three, then four times before he’s coming all over his hand and down his arm while Sirius watches, open mouthed.

“Goddamn I like coming on you.” Sirius pants because he’s a fucking degenerate and apparently he thinks that’s an appropriate thing to say to a person he’s in love with.

“You have an open invitation to do it anytime you want.” Severus tells him.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew how often I want to.” He says and Severus just smirks lazily at him and collapses back into the pillows.

“You’re brilliant at that you know.” Severus says to the ceiling.

“Was that a _compliment_?” He asks.

“She’ll do time, how much we can only guess.” Sirius is saying curled next to him on the bed. His clever fingers had unbuttoned his pyjama top and he was carding them lazily through the dark hair on Severus’s chest. “After that, well, we’ll have to deal with that when it happens. And... you know there’ll be a trial babe.”

Severus casts around for something to say to change the subject. He doesn’t want to talk about that right now, he was happy basking in the warm afterglow of their lovemaking and it was ruining his good mood. He thinks of enduring another long drawn out trial, himself on display for the entire world, people prodding and poking into his mind. He can’t think of anything to say and Black continues: “There is one thing you haven’t said. Who bombed your house? Was it her? Because if it was that would help our case.”

It occurs to him he had always insisted he hadn’t known who did that, God it unnerves him how well that man knows him sometimes. “Oh. No, no it wasn’t her. There’s more than one person alive who hates me enough to see me dead regrettably.”

“Well then?”

“Just a local kid. It doesn’t matter.”

“Wizard?”

“Yes of course. Do you suppose I’m this hated in the Muggle world too? His parents live – lived—” He corrects himself, he can hardly call that place home anymore. “two streets over from me. They have been rather vocal in their dislike of me since I moved back after the war, with good reason I suppose, I am something of a threat to neighbourhood peace. It was tiresome but I never imagined… They’re poor Sirius, they have very little, what would there have been to gain from retaliation?”

“Well they might stop for a start.”

“I saw his face when he realised I was there. He was scared. I’ll bet anything he won’t try anything like that again.”

“And yet you moved out anyway.”

“True. It was bound not to be the last time something like that happened and I hadn’t exactly been careful with who knew I lived there. As it turned out I was right. I suppose I’ve been waiting for something to happen. When it did it was something of a relief.”

“I’m still trying to get over the fact that you’ve been receiving death threats for months and you never told anyone. Of all the stupid, reckless things you could do Snape, this takes the cake. From now on if someone even looks at you sideways you will tell me, you got that?”

“And you’ll fix it like you did that man who threw the bottle?”

“Oh. You knew about that?”

“I saw him the next week and put two and two together.”

“Well if someone’s going to throw a fucking bottle at you yeah, I will.”

“Sirius.”

“Yeah alright. Fine. That was… ill-advised. But my point still stands. You can’t do this alone Severus. We’ll get through this together.”

“Black I won’t be testifying.”

“You don’t have to decide that now-“

“I won’t change my mind. I’ve explained myself enough to those people for one lifetime.”

“Yeah I suppose you have. It’s your decision. I’ll be here for you no matter what if that means anything.”

It did. It meant a great deal.

“Sirius what I did when we— how we left things... it was inexcusable of me. I want to assure you that I would never—“

“Oh god Severus none of that was your fault.”

“I beg to differ.”

“I wanted you to see. I all but pushed my mind on you. You had to know that.”

It did make a certain amount of sense, nothing like that had ever happened to him before. “I wanted to know, I wanted you to confide in me. I suspect it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t. Nothing I said after had any bearing in truth either. But I suppose you know that now.”

“I think I knew it then too on some level. And I sort of did provoke you. I imagine that won’t be the last time we argue like that. What? What’s that look?”

“I was just thinking it would be my very great pleasure to argue with you, Sirius Black, for the rest of my life.”

“You’re completely wonderful, have I ever told you that?”

“No.” Severus replies. “I don’t believe you have.”


	7. Epilogue

Severus never really gets used to the casual touches. The light familial brushing of fingers, lips casually grazed over brows, steadying hands on shoulder blades. When all he’d had before is nothing at all or rough hands pushing, taking. He had thought for the longest time that was what he preferred. He doesn’t think that anymore.

And Black is still... Black. Some things he says are still like nails down a chalkboard to him, sometimes he doesn’t think he can ever forgive him for that thing he tried to do to him when they were 16. The thing that really gets him, the thing he just can’t take is that Black has never been able to apologise for that. It really shits him.

They’re not kids anymore. They’re grown men and he loves him more than the sun and the stars and the whole fucking planet. More than he loves magic he loves him. He could leave it. But he doesn’t leave it. He worries away at it like an ulcer on the side of his mouth.

“You tried to kill me Sirius! That’s why I’m still angry!”

“Babe I let you hate fuck me on the regular, you’re probably ok.”

“I do not… do that.”

“Well we both know that’s a lie.”

“So you’re not going to apologise then. Ever.”

“No I’m fucking not.”

“You are such a fucking child.”

“I hate it when you call me that.”

“You are, you’re a child, though I don’t know why I expect anything else from a man with a mental age of 21.”

“And you’re a bitter old cunt. And a fucking coward, go on say it, say what you want to say. I’ve been in prison then dead since age 21. Permanently stunted, is that what you mean? Is that what you want to say you fucker?”

And Severus looks him in the eyes and says _YES_ with all the bile he can manage and Sirius kicks him out.

When he gets to his rooms that he rarely steps foot in anymore he paces and makes plans for when Black inevitably leaves him and he thinks maybe it’s for the best, maybe he never wants to see him again anyway and they both knew this could never work he’ll just have to come to terms with it somehow. And then he hyperventilates because _no no no no._

And by the time he realises that it was his fault and _fuck_ did he really say that? It’s the next day and Black has owled him Come back I miss your face. He’s grabbed his coat before the paper reaches the ground.

That night he lets Black fuck him like he owns him, lets him bend him over the end of the bed like a whore and fuck him like a mating dog and he comes, though Black doesn’t bother to check, because he always does, he always comes that way, and after he thinks... is this healthy? Do other couples have these problems or is it just them? Does he care?

“You’re a bastard.” He tells him for good measure, lighting a cigarette and shaking out the match as Sirius stalks to the bathroom naked.

Later when he can’t sleep Sirius finds him in the kitchen, I went too far, he says while Severus stares into his herbal tea wondering where this is going, I was a little dick and you didn’t deserve that.

And when Severus says nothing Sirius says, “there was a lot you did deserve though.”

“Sirius.” He warns.

“Sorry. Look are you going to leave me?”

“I’ll never leave you.” He tells him. “You’ll have to leave me first.”

The next day Sirius suggests they try couples therapy. He agrees.

Their couple’s councillor is overly demonstrative and effusive with praise and Sirius seemed to like him even though Severus thinks he’s a bit of a twat. Though he has to admit it was nice to have someone say a few positive things about their relationship for a change, Severus had expected something along the lines of _are you sure you want to be with this person Mr Black? He’s vile and unpleasant and his nose is too big for his face_. But on the contrary, the guy appeared to be rooting for them. I see why you like him Sirius, he had said once with a twinkle. More than once he had taken Severus’s side. I think he’s right you know Sirius. I am? Severus had asked. He’s got the hots for you Sirius had teased after one of their sessions. Shouldn’t we find a different therapist then? He had said even though he found the idea highly improbable. Nah, Sirius had replied, he gets it. As to what he got Severus had not wanted to ask.

Severus’s new shrink (his own shrink, a different one from Sirius’s, they made sure of it.) wants to talk about his childhood. The last one hadn’t of course, she’d just wanted to talk about his time as a Death Eater come spy and tap him for information about Sirius for leverage. He’d since realised that approach had been problematic. Caused more trauma. Or so the new one says.

His childhood though is the last thing he wants to talk about and he side steps and evades. Trust issues new shrink says. Well he doesn’t say, but he writes in his little book where he thinks Severus can’t see. Severus knows how read what people are writing merely from the arc of the quill. His life used to depend on noticing the little things. Of course I have trust issues you complete burk, he wants to tell him, my last therapist tried to kill me. But he doesn’t because that would surely prove his point. Do you think you feel comfortable with Sirius because he reminds you of how you were treated by your father? He asks. Fuck you, Severus replies. But he keeps him around because he’s honest and doesn’t just say what he thinks Severus wants to hear. These days that’s a problem, most people he meets are scared of him. Even the ones who threaten him. Especially those ones.

He’s even resisted the temptation to spy on him, just to make sure of his motives.

That’s a lie. That’s actually the lie he tells Sirius. He didn’t resist the temptation at all. Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t make that mistake again (he has something to live for now. Someone). He’s followed him home, he knows where he lives, he knows his entire history. He knows for example, that his mother was a muggle and used to call him Bunny. He’s done the same with Sirius’s shrink, (married, two kids) as well as their couple’s councillor (single, lives with a flatmate and a cat named Henry). He’s vetted them all very thoroughly. He has no regrets.

“I’m in here,” he calls from behind his paper when he hears Sirius come in through the front door. Sirius sees his shrink twice a week. Profound complex trauma Sirius had been told. Twice a week was the minimum for that apparently. Sirius had started drinking again in secret, after each of his sessions, so there were meetings for that too. Though he was sober again coming up three months the whole episode had scared Severus so much he had become excessively hyper-vigilant, which of course was his default mode but it’s too much, even he can tell that, he knows it’s starting to piss Sirius off, it’s just that he can’t seem to stop himself. He just wishes Sirius would behave more carefully. He wishes he wouldn’t leave he house. His fingers itch to perform protection spells whenever he does. He finds himself coming home during his breaks more and more and recently they’d started fighting about Sirius’s motorbike. (Although, _come on_ , that thing is a fucking death trap). Anyway it’s getting very old, he knows.

Sirius saunters in to the kitchen and Severus can tell he’s in a foul mood, he bangs open one of the cupboards and pours himself a water.

“Did you find anything?” Sirius asks slouching against the counter.

Severus pauses before he answers. He wonders how long he’s known.

That morning when Sirius had left the house, as was his habit, he had checked all the spots he knows Sirius uses for hiding liquor; in the crawl space above the third floor landing, the back of the wardrobe in that room on the second floor that Severus hadn’t noticed for several months and sometimes misses even when he is deliberately looking for it, in the space behind the portrait of a long dead great grandfather, imposing and handsome, with a patrician nose and strong jaw disconcertingly similar to Sirius’s. “Get your hands off me you filthy queer,” he had said when Severus had pushed him aside. He found nothing, (nor had he expected to, he tells himself) but rather than feeling pleased he had felt merely scheming and underhand.

“No.” He says carefully.

“No.” Sirius repeats.

“I can stop.”

“Can you?”

It’s a fair question.

Sirius takes a deep breath. “Christ, I’m sorry babe, it’s been a real shitty morning. It’s ok. Really.” Severus had the feeling it wasn’t but he wasn’t about to say so.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Severus asks meaning the session, it was something the couple’s councillor had told them to say and they were supposed to reply honestly.

“Not right now. Maybe later.” Severus is quietly relieved at the answer and files that away under Reasons why I am Not a Good Person.

He gets up and puts his arms around Sirius, he rests his chin on his shoulder and he can feel the heat coming off him and smell his sweat. He must have walked all the way home he thinks. “You smell good.” He says into his neck and Sirius wraps his arms around him back.

“I should have asked you.” He tells Sirius. “I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t trust you.” He adds.

“Did you check the loose floorboard in the fourth bathroom?”

“Fuck.” There’s a fourth bathroom? “Are you joking?”

“Nope.”

“Well that’s unfortunate.”

“There’s no one more devious than a drunk.” Sirius says.

“But I’m good at this.” Severus says.

Sirius shrugs. “I know babe.”

And that’s how it goes. He fucks up and Sirius keeps forgiving him. It’s nothing short of a miracle. He’s not sure how many chances he has left because Sirius refuses to tell him. It doesn’t work like that, he says. How does it work? He wants to ask but hasn’t ever had the nerve.

He continues to drink up each and every touch, every tender look like they’re water in the desert, like a vampire would drink blood, all the while pretending he’s not, pretends that if they stopped he wouldn’t shatter like glass. Pretends to himself his love is not a dark, smothering thing, an extinguishing thing, pretends it’s different this time.

—

Severus and he play shrink tag. At any given time one of them is usually either heading to or returning from getting their head read. Usually him because he’s the crazier one, the one too far gone to participate in society in any meaningful way. He’s not universally hated anymore (that’s Severus) but he still can’t hold down a job (he tried) and he can’t even so much as go shopping or get in a lift without risking panic induced rages. Never mind says Severus like it’s nothing, why do you need to work anyway? My income is sufficient for the both of us. He supposed Severus thought he was being practical but it only left him feeling emasculated. I have money, he says haughtily, as if that were ever the issue. What’s the problem then? Says Severus.

The man’s infuriating, that’s just a fact. Sometimes Sirius wonders if Severus sees him more as that stupid boy he was at 15 than the man he is now. Severus doesn’t so much hold a grudge as he does nurture it; he’s raised resentment to an art form. Have I not paid enough for my sins? He asks him. How many more years would you have them take from me? Severus’s face changes, like Sirius had delivered a blow. None my love, he says, as long as I take breath you will never see Azkaban again, that you can be sure of. It’s not your job to save me, Sirius says. Yes it is, I warned you of this from the start. You’re a stubborn little bastard, he tells him. Severus just raises his eyebrow at him as if to say what else were you expecting?

He wants to be able to say I don’t need looking after but that’s not quite correct.

Their therapist’s office, not two weeks ago. They’re in a lift and Sirius suddenly can’tbreathe. So of course he does what any nut job worth his salt would do, he freaks out, starts banging on the doors, I have to get out, he tells Severus, get me fucking out. And of course Severus gets out his goddamn wand of all things and Petrifies the two wizards that are in there with them and places his hands on either side of Sirius’s face. Look at me, he says, just me, do what I do. And they breathe together until Sirius has calmed down and they are at the bottom. Severus unfreezes the others and they look around confused then one of them remembers who he’s in the lift with. You! He snarls pointing at Severus. What did you do??

Sirius hadn’t been sure how he had been the one to come out of that looking better but that’s what had happened. I don’t see why I should care, Severus had said, your safety is my paramount concern.

Of course Sirius does not deserve to be loved this well, there’s another fact. He knows what he’s like, he’s fucking awful. He’s a drunk, he’ll always be a drunk, even when he’s not drinking, also he’s pretty much completely broken and probably crazy too. Severus seems to think he’s pretty amazing for some reason and sometimes he wonders if it’s purely because of the way he looks. Which is actually fine by him but he’s getting on, he won’t look like this forever. Once he bought this up with Severus, Black you could be 105 and using a walker and I would probably still think you were the sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on he had said. See what he means? How do you even deal with that?

Though the truth is, it’s starting to get on his nerves. He’s not a fair maiden in need of bloody rescuing. But of course that’s mean and ungracious and he should be appreciative shouldn’t he? Shouldn’t he? He’s trying _reealy_ hard not to fuck this up this time, even if it might not seem like he is.

It’s just that, Merlin’s beard, he needs to feel like a man sometimes, you know?

So he dominates him in the bedroom, far more than he ever had done in the past. Tell me I’m you’re man, he says, bend over for me, take it. Snape does and it makes him feel better about spending long sprawling hours at home while Severus works, about Severus doing the shopping because Sirius can’t manage it, about Severus sneaking around, checking up on him, tailing Sirius’s goddamn therapist. When he says it like that none of these things are Severus’s fault. Doesn’t mean he can’t blame him for them though.

I used to dream about you, he tells him. I would wake up hard and horny as fuck. And I hated it. I hated you. God I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone so much in my life.

What were we doing? Severus asks him, ignoring the rest: hating each other was a given. In your dreams, what were we doing?

I don’t really remember them all, kid stuff, once I gave you a hand job against a wall while you told me to stop. I don’t think you really meant it if that means anything.

I would have just been bluffing.

Yeah that’s the impression I had.

Did I come?

God yeah, all over my hand. Then I woke up.

Sirius reaches for him and he slaps his hand away, who said you could touch me? He says. There must be a universe where they haven’t touched each other, where they’re still enemies. There must be hundreds. In this one though he pushes him down, covers his smaller body in his while Severus pretends to struggle. And maybe Sirius is a little too dominant, a little too forceful, maybe he’s compensating, but when they come it’s at the same time and Sirius gasps _fuck I love you_ as if he’s surprised by it all over again.

Of course self control has never really been his strong point. Particularly when it comes to Snape.

“I’m not a fucking woman Severus, stop trying to make me in to your fucking wife.” He says to him.

“What are you on about now?”

“If you want someone to control maybe you should get yourself an obedient little girlfriend, someone small and docile, she might be able to push you out a kid or two while she’s at it. It’s what you’ve always wanted isn’t it? Such a pity you weren’t born heterosexual.”

“Careful Black, you’re sounding as crazy as most people think you are. Why don’t you talk to me again when you’ve figured out how conversations with adults work.” Severus’s lip curls at him like Sirius is dirt beneath his shoe. They had been taught strategies on how to argue constructively, whatever the fuck that meant, but when it got real they both reverted back to fighting in the dirt, it was what they were comfortable with.

“I fucking hate this. You make me miserable!”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. We should never have done this.” Severus says, and Sirius’s heart breaks just a bit as Severus leaves for Durmstrang for three weeks in a whirl of robes and anger. Pity those poor students.

Later that evening he fire-calls Sirius from his room.

“Black please tell me you know I didn't mean any of that. I’ve never once regretted this. Never once. And I know I’ve been intolerable.”

“You’ve never made me miserable. That was an unbelievable thing to say. I wish we didn’t leave it like that,” he says.

“If something happened to you I couldn’t live with myself.” Severus says quietly, and Sirius knows he’s trying his best to explain. He also knows what it costs him to say it.

“I’m not her.” Sirius tries to keep his voice gentle.

“You need to understand…”

“I do.”

“I have so much blood on my hands.”

“Not hers.”

“Always hers. Sometimes I feel like I can see it.”

“It won’t happen to me.”

“It almost did.”

“This has to stop. I won’t be monitored. I can’t have you dictating my every move.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder Severus.” He tells him.

Later they write each other long, languid letters full of things they maybe can’t ever say in real life. My only love Severus calls him and it makes his heart ache, the ferocity of Severus’s love doesn't feel suffocating from this far away, it feels like a balm. He clings to it and it shores him through the worst of the long nights, when he feels achingly hollow and the bottle store is mere metres down the road.

Sometimes when we touch I feel you startle, almost imperceptibly, he writes, and you pretend you don’t. And those times it feels like there’s static between us, something hot and sharp and sweet. Do you know what I mean I wonder? Or are these merely the ravings of a sleep deprived lunatic?

He expects to get back from him something droll and placating. But instead:

Black, the truth is I still find myself unused to the simple startling pleasure of your touch, perhaps I always will be. You must think me very strange. I’ll try to stop. (The other truth is you make me feel unmoored, like you've unsettled my very soul. Did you mean to?)

God don’t stop, he writes back to him. Don’t ever stop you idiot. And of course I meant to. I want to eat you up. I’ve always wanted nothing more nor less than to get under your skin haven’t I? Actually all I really wanted was for you to notice me. There really wasn’t anything more complicated to it than that. I failed to realise all I had to do was touch you.

Sirius draws in a sharp breath when he sees him again after three weeks. “What’s _that_?”

Severus scrubs his hand over his face, there’s about half an inch of dark beard on him. “Sorry I must look a mess. It was so cold, it’s a simple way to keep warm. Everyone does it. Let me put these bags away and I’ll go clean up.”

Sirius grabs his sleeve, looks at him, shakes his head.

“No?”

Sirius shakes his head again.

Severus looks at him curiously. “Is this doing it for you?”

Sirius nods his head. Severus drops his bags where he stands.

“Alright. Let’s go.” He tugs Sirius upstairs after him.

In their room he runs his fingers through his beard. “God.” He says. “You look so...” he doesn’t even know... unkempt, coarse, sexual.

“Fucking sexy.” He goes with.

“I thought about you every minute of every day.” Severus tells him.

Then he bends Sirius in half and shoves his face in his ass in that desperate, hungry way he’s always done it. God I missed you, Sirius rasps out. I’ve been a mess.

Scratches, he says, it’s so good. So good. Head falling back on the pillow and hands twisting in sheets.

And he tells Severus to fuck him like he hasn’t done for the longest time because Sirius had been trying to prove what a big man he was.

When Sirius has his legs flung round him and Severus inside him he thinks of what an idiot he’s been. Forgive me Severus he whispers. Always, he hears back. For everything. If you’ll do the same.

Severus’s cock knifing into him makes his eyes water and his hands cling like he’s drowning feeling like his orgasm is being forced out of him from deep within. He comes with Severus’ beard roughened face buried into his neck, groaning deeper and loader than he had intended to.

“Is this a good time to tell you I don’t wish you were a woman?” Severus asks after, he’s slightly out of breath and running light, exploring fingers up Sirius’s flank as if he’d forgotten what Sirius’s body looked like.

“Ugh don’t remind me, can you please just forget I said that?”

“What about you Black do you think I would enjoy if that were in fact my preference?”

“Stop.”

“Is it your coarse hair here?” He trails his hand downwards. “Or here? Your thick, solid thighs? These arms that can lift me as though I weigh nothing? Or is it your wide hands, these thick, long fingers.”

“I don’t know.” He whispers. The way Severus describes fingers is obscene.

“If you were trying to punish me by dominating me in the bedroom you will have to try another method.”

“I know.” He says with a gulp. “I know you like it.”

“Is that right? What else do you think you know about me, Sirius Black?”

“Not a lot.” He admits. “I still can’t figure out when you’re lying to me.”

Severus raises his eyebrow mildly at him.

“Goddammit Snape, you better sit on my cock now before I explode.” He says.

Severus does.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [【授翻】Not Quite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22678117) by [SuFeng2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuFeng2017/pseuds/SuFeng2017)




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